flannel plugin

Overview

This plugin is designed to work in conjunction with flannel , a network fabric for containers. When flannel daemon is started, it outputs a /run/flannel/subnet.env file that looks like this:

FLANNEL_NETWORK=10.1.0.0/16
FLANNEL_SUBNET=10.1.17.1/24
FLANNEL_MTU=1472
FLANNEL_IPMASQ=true

This information reflects the attributes of flannel network on the host. The flannel CNI plugin uses this information to configure another CNI plugin, such as bridge plugin.

Operation

Given the following network configuration file and the contents of /run/flannel/subnet.env above,

{
	"name": "mynet",
	"type": "flannel"
}

the flannel plugin will generate another network configuration file:

{
	"name": "mynet",
	"type": "bridge",
	"mtu": 1472,
	"ipMasq": false,
	"isGateway": true,
	"ipam": {
		"type": "host-local",
		"subnet": "10.1.17.0/24"
	}
}

It will then invoke the bridge plugin, passing it the generated configuration.

As can be seen from above, the flannel plugin, by default, will delegate to the bridge plugin. If additional configuration values need to be passed to the bridge plugin, it can be done so via the delegate field:

{
	"name": "mynet",
	"type": "flannel",
	"delegate": {
		"bridge": "mynet0",
		"mtu": 1400
	}
}

This supplies a configuration parameter to the bridge plugin – the created bridge will now be named mynet0. Notice that mtu has also been specified and this value will not be overwritten by flannel plugin.

Additionally, the delegate field can be used to select a different kind of plugin altogether. To use ipvlan instead of bridge, the following configuration can be specified:

{
	"name": "mynet",
	"type": "flannel",
	"delegate": {
		"type": "ipvlan",
		"master": "eth0"
	}
}

The ipam part of the network configuration generated for the delegated plugin, can also be customized by adding a base ipam section to the input flannel network configuration. This ipam element is then updated with the flannel subnet, a route to the flannel network and, unless provided, an ipam type set to host-local before being provided to the delegated plugin.

Network configuration reference

• name (string, required): the name of the network
• type (string, required): “flannel”
• subnetFile (string, optional): full path to the subnet file written out by flanneld. Defaults to /run/flannel/subnet.env
• dataDir (string, optional): path to directory where plugin will store generated network configuration files. Defaults to /var/lib/cni/flannel
• delegate (dictionary, optional): specifies configuration options for the delegated plugin.
• ipam (dictionary, optional, Linux only): when specified, is used as basis to construct the ipam section of the delegated plugin configuration.

flannel plugin will always set the following fields in the delegated plugin configuration:

• name: value of its “name” field.
• ipam: based on the received ipam section if present, with a type defaulting to host-local, a subnet set to $FLANNEL_SUBNET and (Linux only) a routes element assembled from the routes listed in the received ipam element and a route to the flannel network. Other fields present in the input ipam section will be transparently provided to the delegate.

flannel plugin will set the following fields in the delegated plugin configuration if they are not present:

• ipMasq: the inverse of $FLANNEL_IPMASQ
• mtu: $FLANNEL_MTU

Additionally, for the bridge plugin, isGateway will be set to true, if not present.

One use case of the ipam configuration is to allow adding back the routes to the cluster services and/or to the hosts when using isDefaultGateway=false. In that case, the bridge plugin does not install a default route and, as a result, only pod-to-pod connectivity would be available.

Windows Support (Experimental)

This plugin supports delegating to the windows CNI plugins (overlay.exe, l2bridge.exe) to work in conjunction with Flannel on Windows . Flannel sets up an HNS Network in L2Bridge mode for host-gw and in Overlay mode for vxlan.

The following fields must be set in the delegated plugin configuration:

• name (string, required): the name of the network (must match the name in Flannel config / name of the HNS network)
• type (string, optional): set to win-l2bridge by default. Can be set to win-overlay or other custom windows CNI
• ipMasq: the inverse of $FLANNEL_IPMASQ
• endpointMacPrefix (string, optional): required for win-overlay mode, set to the MAC prefix configured for Flannel
• clusterNetworkPrefix (string, optional): required for win-l2bridge mode, setup NAT if ipMasq is set to true

For win-l2bridge, the Flannel CNI plugin will set:

• ipam: “host-local” type will be used with “subnet” set to $FLANNEL_SUBNET and gateway as the .2 address in $FLANNEL_NETWORK

For win-overlay, the Flannel CNI plugin will set:

• ipam: “host-local” type will be used with “subnet” set to $FLANNEL_SUBNET and gateway as the .1 address in $FLANNEL_NETWORK

If IPMASQ is true, the Flannel CNI plugin will setup an OutBoundNAT policy and add FLANNEL_SUBNET to any existing exclusions.

All other delegate config e.g. other HNS endpoint policies in AdditionalArgs will be passed to WINCNI as-is.

Example VXLAN Flannel CNI config

{
	"name": "mynet",
	"type": "flannel",
	"delegate": {
		"type": "win-overlay",
		"endpointMacPrefix": "0E-2A"
	}
}

For this example, Flannel CNI would generate the following config to delegate to the windows CNI when FLANNEL_NETWORK=10.244.0.0/16, FLANNEL_SUBNET=10.244.1.0/24 and IPMASQ=true

{
	"name": "mynet",
	"type": "win-overlay",
	"endpointMacPrefix": "0E-2A",
	"ipMasq": true,
	"ipam": {
		"subnet": "10.244.1.0/24",
		"type": "host-local"
	}
}