Networking
refresher
I N T E R M E D I AT E D O C K E R
Mike Metzger
Data Engineering Consultant
What is networking?
A computer network consists of systems
communicating via a defined method
Varying levels of communication, physical
or logical, referred to as protocols
Common physical networks include
Ethernet and WiFi
Logical networking includes TCP/IP, HTTP,
and SMTP
Networks are defined in various layers or
levels. Often referred to as a networking
stack
1 Photo by Jordan Harrison on Unsplash.
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Networking terms
Host
General term for a computer
Network
Group of hosts
Interface
Actual connection from a host to a network, such as Ethernet or WiFi
Can be virtual, meaning entirely in software
LAN
Local Area Network, or set of computers at a given location
VLAN
Virtual LAN, or a software LAN
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Internet Protocol
IP
Internet protocol, method to connect between networks using IP addresses
IPv4
Version of IP supporting 4.2 billion addresses, currently exhausted
IPv6
Newer version of IP, supporting 2^128 addresses, still being deployed
IPv4: 10.10.10.1
IPv6: 2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334
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TCP / UDP
TCP
Transmission Control Protocol, used to reliably communicate between hosts on IP
networks
UDP
User Datagram Protocol, used to communicate between hosts on IP where
communication is not required.
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Ports
Port
Addresses services on a given host, a value between 0 and 65535, used to communicate
between hosts via TCP or UDP
Ports below 1024 are typically reserved for privileged accounts
Values above 1024 are usually ephemeral or temporary ports
Applications listen on a port.
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Application protocols
HTTP/HTTPS
Application protocol, defaulting to TCP port 80 for web communication. Secure version on
TCP 443
SMTP
Email transfer protocol, over TCP port 25
SNMP
Network management protocol, over UDP port 161
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Docker and networking
Can communicate between containers
Can communicate with the host system
Depending on settings can communicate with external hosts
Typical communication is handled by exposing ports from container to host
Acts like a translation between containers and hosts
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Docker and IP
Containers can have IP addresses
Use ifconfig <interface> or ip addr show <interface> from within container to find
addresses
Use ping -c <x> <host> to verify connectivity
ping -c 3 myhost
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Let's practice!
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Making network
services available in
Docker
I N T E R M E D I AT E D O C K E R
Mike Metzger
Data Engineering Consultant
Network services
Network services listen on a given port
Only one program can listen on an IP:port combo at a given time
For example, 10.1.2.3 80 would be listening on 10.1.2.3 on port 80.
Consider trying to debug different versions of a web server that listens on port 80
Could only run one copy of the application at a time given that it listens only on that port
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Containerized services
Wrapping application in a container means that each container can now listen on that port
(as the IP:port combo is different, each container has a different IP)
Can have multiple copies of the containers running at once
But how to connect to container's version of application from the host?
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Port mapping
The answer is the use of port mapping, or
port forwarding / translation
Port mapping takes a connection to a given
IP:port and automatically forwards it to
another IP:port combo
In this case, we could map an unused port
on our host and point it to port 80 on the
container(s)
The Docker engine can handle this
automatically if we configure it to
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Enabling port mapping
To enable port mapping on a given container, we use the docker run command, and the
-p flag
-p <host port>:<container port>
-p 5501:80
Can have multiple -p flags for different ports
repl@host:~$ docker run -p 5501:80 nginx
repl@host:~$ docker ps -a
CONTAINER ID IMAGE ... PORTS NAMES
84266724ff47 nginx ... 0.0.0.0:5501->80/tcp, :::5501->80/tcp coiled_elgamal
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Exposing ports with
Dockerfiles
I N T E R M E D I AT E D O C K E R
Mike Metzger
Data Engineer
Exposing services
EXPOSE command
Defines which ports the container will use at runtime
Can be defined as <number> , <number>/tcp , or <number>/udp
Such as EXPOSE 80 or EXPOSE 80/tcp
Multiple entries permitted
Used as a documentation method
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Using the -p / -P flags
Still requires use of -p or -P options to docker run to make the ports available outside
the container
The -P option will automatically map an ephemeral port to the exposed port(s). Must use
docker ps -a to see which ports are mapped.
Using -p<host port>:<container port> allows use of specific ports.
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EXPOSE example
# Dockerfile
FROM python:3.11-slim
ENTRYPOINT ["python","-mhttp.server"]
# Let the Docker engine know
# port 8000 should be available
EXPOSE 8000
Create a container from the image
docker run pyserver
Print the state of the container
docker ps -a
CONTAINER ID IMAGE ... PORTS NAMES
8c3d320255ae pyserver ... 8000/tcp angry_chaum
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Making ports reachable
Automatically map temporary port from host to the container
docker run -P pyserver
docker ps -a
CONTAINER ID IMAGE ... PORTS NAMES
6bb458ef25da pyserver ... 0.0.0.0:55001->8000/tcp beautiful_lamarr
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Finding exposed ports
docker inspect provides a lot of information
docker inspect <id>
"NetworkSettings": {
"Bridge": "",
"Ports": {
"8000/tcp": [{
"HostIp": "0.0.0.0",
"HostPort": "55001"
}]
},
...
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Docker networks
I N T E R M E D I AT E D O C K E R
Mike Metzger
Data Engineering Consultant
Docker networking
Docker has extensive networking options
Can create networks to communicate between containers, host, and external systems
Will cover various commands to interact with networks.
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Docker networking types
Docker supports different networking types, using drivers
bridge: Default driver, allows connections out, connections in if exposed
host: Allows full communication between host and containers
none: Isolate container from network communications
Many others, including custom drivers
Will mostly use the bridge driver to create our own networks
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Working with Docker networks
Several commands:
docker network
docker network <command>
docker network <command> --help
docker network ls to list all docker networks on the host
docker network create to create a network
docker network rm to remove a network
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Docker network example
Create a Docker network named mynetwork
repl@host:~$ docker network create mynetwork
5ff0febab98f73b74dd753eb44a30f7d7291052b3b1d58b0134589221cb8e33d
repl@host:~$ docker network ls
NETWORK ID NAME DRIVER SCOPE
2edc5ae4838c bridge bridge local
a92988382711 host host local
5ff0febab98f mynetwork bridge local
5464ed866dad none null local
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Attaching containers to networks
How to connect container to a network?
docker run --network <networkname> ...
docker run --network mynetwork ubuntu bash
Can also connect containers later
docker network connect <networkname> <container>
docker network connect mynetwork ubuntu-B
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docker network inspect
How to check details of network?
docker network inspect <networkname>
Provides configuration info and IP addresses assigned to containers
repl@host:~$ docker network inspect mynetwork
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docker network inspect example
"Name": "mynetwork",
...
"Driver": "bridge",
...
Containers": { "2be08aa942029191350d4bceb8816254af8713dd6f7dcbadcab8f068f
"Name": "unruffled_kare",
"EndpointID": "29739356ae200e1e901d2eabef05efaca0fb37e1a4e1a4c3bf369
"MacAddress": "02:42:ac:12:00:02",
"IPv4Address": "172.18.0.2/16",
"IPv6Address": ""
}
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Let's practice!
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