Port-mapping plugin

This plugin will forward traffic from one or more ports on the host to the container. It expects to be run as a chained plugin.

Usage

You should use this plugin as part of a network configuration list. It accepts the following configuration options:

• snat - boolean, default true. If true or omitted, set up the SNAT chains
• markMasqBit - int, (0-31), default 13. The mark bit to use for masquerading (see section SNAT). Cannot be set when externalSetMarkChain is used.
• externalSetMarkChain - string, default nil. If you already have a Masquerade mark chain (e.g. Kubernetes), specify it here. This will use that instead of creating a separate chain. When this is set, markMasqBit must be unspecified.
• conditionsV4, conditionsV6 - array of strings. A list of arbitrary iptables matches to add to the per-container rule. This may be useful if you wish to exclude specific IPs from port-mapping

The plugin expects to receive the actual list of port mappings via the portMappings capability argument

A sample standalone config list for Kubernetes (with the file extension .conflist) might look like:

{
        "cniVersion": "0.3.1",
        "name": "mynet",
        "plugins": [
                {
                        "type": "ptp",
                        "ipMasq": true,
                        "ipam": {
                                "type": "host-local",
                                "subnet": "172.16.30.0/24",
                                "routes": [
                                        {
                                                "dst": "0.0.0.0/0"
                                        }
                                ]
                        }
                },
                {
                        "type": "portmap",
                        "capabilities": {"portMappings": true},
                        "externalSetMarkChain": "KUBE-MARK-MASQ"
                }
        ]
}

A configuration file with all options set:

{
        "type": "portmap",
        "capabilities": {"portMappings": true},
        "snat": true,
        "markMasqBit": 13,
        "externalSetMarkChain": "CNI-HOSTPORT-SETMARK",
        "conditionsV4": ["!", "-d", "192.0.2.0/24"],
        "conditionsV6": ["!", "-d", "fc00::/7"]
}

Rule structure

The plugin sets up two sequences of chains and rules - one “primary” DNAT sequence to rewrite the destination, and one additional SNAT sequence that will masquerade traffic as needed.

DNAT

The DNAT rule rewrites the destination port and address of new connections. There is a top-level chain, CNI-HOSTPORT-DNAT which is always created and never deleted. Each plugin execution creates an additional chain for ease of cleanup. So, if a single container exists on IP 172.16.30.2 with ports 8080 and 8043 on the host forwarded to ports 80 and 443 in the container, the rules look like this:

PREROUTING, OUTPUT chains:

• --dst-type LOCAL -j CNI-HOSTPORT-DNAT

CNI-HOSTPORT-DNAT chain:

• ${ConditionsV4/6} -p tcp --destination-ports 8080,8043 -j CNI-DN-xxxxxx (where xxxxxx is a function of the ContainerID and network name)

CNI-HOSTPORT-SETMARK chain:

• -j MARK --set-xmark 0x2000/0x2000

CNI-DN-xxxxxx chain:

• -p tcp -s 172.16.30.2 --dport 8080 -j CNI-HOSTPORT-SETMARK (masquerade hairpin traffic)
• -p tcp -s 127.0.0.1 --dport 8080 -j CNI-HOSTPORT-SETMARK (masquerade localhost traffic)
• -p tcp --dport 8080 -j DNAT --to-destination 172.16.30.2:80 (rewrite destination)
• -p tcp -s 172.16.30.2 --dport 8043 -j CNI-HOSTPORT-SETMARK
• -p tcp -s 127.0.0.1 --dport 8043 -j CNI-HOSTPORT-SETMARK
• -p tcp --dport 8043 -j DNAT --to-destination 172.16.30.2:443

New connections to the host will have to traverse every rule, so large numbers of port forwards may have a performance impact. This won’t affect established connections, just the first packet.

SNAT (Masquerade)

Some packets also need to have the source address rewritten:

• connections from localhost
• Hairpin traffic back to the container.

In the DNAT chain, a bit is set on the mark for packets that need snat. This chain performs that masquerading. By default, bit 13 is set, but this is configurable. If you are using other tools that also use the iptables mark, you should make sure this doesn’t conflict.

Some container runtimes, most notably Kubernetes, already have a set of rules for masquerading when a specific mark bit is set. If so enabled, the plugin will use that chain instead.

POSTROUTING:

• -j CNI-HOSTPORT-MASQ

CNI-HOSTPORT-MASQ:

• --mark 0x2000 -j MASQUERADE

Because MASQUERADE happens in POSTROUTING, it means that packets with source ip 127.0.0.1 need to first pass a routing boundary before being masqueraded. By default, that is not allowed in Linux. So, the plugin needs to enable the sysctl net.ipv4.conf.IFNAME.route_localnet, where IFNAME is the name of the host-side interface that routes traffic to the container.

There is no equivalent to route_localnet for ipv6, so connections to ::1 will not be portmapped for ipv6. If you need port forwarding from localhost, your container must have an ipv4 address.

Known issues

• ipsets could improve efficiency
• forwarding from localhost does not work with ipv6.