---
title: Use overlay networks
description: All about using overlay networks
keywords: network, overlay, user-defined, swarm, service
redirect_from:
- /engine/swarm/networking/
- /engine/userguide/networking/overlay-security-model/
- /config/containers/overlay/
---

The `overlay` network driver creates a distributed network among multiple
Docker daemon hosts. This network sits on top of (overlays) the host-specific
networks, allowing containers connected to it (including swarm service
containers) to communicate securely when encryption is enabled. Docker
transparently handles routing of each packet to and from the correct Docker
daemon host and the correct destination container.

When you initialize a swarm or join a Docker host to an existing swarm, two
new networks are created on that Docker host:

- an overlay network called `ingress`, which handles the control and data traffic
  related to swarm services. When you create a swarm service and do not
  connect it to a user-defined overlay network, it connects to the `ingress`
  network by default.
- a bridge network called `docker_gwbridge`, which connects the individual
  Docker daemon to the other daemons participating in the swarm.

You can create user-defined `overlay` networks using `docker network create`,
in the same way that you can create user-defined `bridge` networks. Services
or containers can be connected to more than one network at a time. Services or
containers can only communicate across networks they are each connected to.

Although you can connect both swarm services and standalone containers to an
overlay network, the default behaviors and configuration concerns are different.
For that reason, the rest of this topic is divided into operations that apply to
all overlay networks, those that apply to swarm service networks, and those that
apply to overlay networks used by standalone containers.

## Operations for all overlay networks

### Create an overlay network

> **Prerequisites**:
>
> - Firewall rules for Docker daemons using overlay networks
>
>   You need the following ports open to traffic to and from each Docker host
>   participating on an overlay network:
>
>   - TCP port 2377 for cluster management communications
>   - TCP and UDP port 7946 for communication among nodes
>   - UDP port 4789 for overlay network traffic
>
> - Before you can create an overlay network, you need to either initialize your
>   Docker daemon as a swarm manager using `docker swarm init` or join it to an
>   existing swarm using `docker swarm join`. Either of these creates the default
>   `ingress` overlay network which is used by swarm services by default. You need
>   to do this even if you never plan to use swarm services. Afterward, you can
>   create additional user-defined overlay networks.

To create an overlay network for use with swarm services, use a command like
the following:

```bash
$ docker network create -d overlay my-overlay
```

To create an overlay network which can be used by swarm services **or**
standalone containers to communicate with other standalone containers running on
other Docker daemons, add the `--attachable` flag:

```bash
$ docker network create -d overlay --attachable my-attachable-overlay
```

You can specify the IP address range, subnet, gateway, and other options. See
`docker network create --help` for details.

### Encrypt traffic on an overlay network

All swarm service management traffic is encrypted by default, using the
[AES algorithm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galois/Counter_Mode) in
GCM mode. Manager nodes in the swarm rotate the key used to encrypt gossip data
every 12 hours.

To encrypt application data as well, add `--opt encrypted` when creating the
overlay network. This enables IPSEC encryption at the level of the vxlan. This
encryption imposes a non-negligible performance penalty, so you should test this
option before using it in production.

When you enable overlay encryption, Docker creates IPSEC tunnels between all the
nodes where tasks are scheduled for services attached to the overlay network.
These tunnels also use the AES algorithm in GCM mode and manager nodes
automatically rotate the keys every 12 hours.

> **Do not attach Windows nodes to encrypted overlay networks.**
>
> Overlay network encryption is not supported on Windows. If a Windows node
> attempts to connect to an encrypted overlay network, no error is detected but
> the node cannot communicate.
{: .warning }

#### Swarm mode overlay networks and standalone containers

You can use the overlay network feature with both `--opt encrypted --attachable`
 and attach unmanaged containers to that network:

```bash
$ docker network create --opt encrypted --driver overlay --attachable my-attachable-multi-host-network
```

### Customize the default ingress network

Most users never need to configure the `ingress` network, but Docker allows you
to do so. This can be useful if the automatically-chosen subnet conflicts with
one that already exists on your network, or you need to customize other low-level
network settings such as the MTU.

Customizing the `ingress` network involves removing and recreating it. This is
usually done before you create any services in the swarm. If you have existing
services which publish ports, those services need to be removed before you can
remove the `ingress` network.

During the time that no `ingress` network exists, existing services which do not
publish ports continue to function but are not load-balanced. This affects
services which publish ports, such as a WordPress service which publishes port
80.

1.  Inspect the `ingress` network using `docker network inspect ingress`, and
    remove any services whose containers are connected to it. These are services
    that publish ports, such as a WordPress service which publishes port 80. If
    all such services are not stopped, the next step fails.

2.  Remove the existing `ingress` network:

    ```bash
    $ docker network rm ingress

    WARNING! Before removing the routing-mesh network, make sure all the nodes
    in your swarm run the same docker engine version. Otherwise, removal may not
    be effective and functionality of newly created ingress networks will be
    impaired.
    Are you sure you want to continue? [y/N]
    ```

3.  Create a new overlay network using the `--ingress` flag, along  with the
    custom options you want to set. This example sets the MTU to 1200, sets
    the subnet to `10.11.0.0/16`, and sets the gateway to `10.11.0.2`.

    ```bash
    $ docker network create \
      --driver overlay \
      --ingress \
      --subnet=10.11.0.0/16 \
      --gateway=10.11.0.2 \
      --opt com.docker.network.driver.mtu=1200 \
      my-ingress
    ```

    > **Note**: You can name your `ingress` network something other than
    > `ingress`, but you can only have one. An attempt to create a second one
    > fails.

4.  Restart the services that you stopped in the first step.

### Customize the docker_gwbridge interface

The `docker_gwbridge` is a virtual bridge that connects the overlay networks
(including the `ingress` network) to an individual Docker daemon's physical
network. Docker creates it automatically when you initialize a swarm or join a
Docker host to a swarm, but it is not a Docker device. It exists in the kernel
of the Docker host. If you need to customize its settings, you must do so before
joining the Docker host to the swarm, or after temporarily removing the host
from the swarm.

1.  Stop Docker.

2.  Delete the existing `docker_gwbridge` interface.

    ```bash
    $ sudo ip link set docker_gwbridge down

    $ sudo ip link del dev docker_gwbridge
    ```

3.  Start Docker. Do not join or initialize the swarm.

4.  Create or re-create the `docker_gwbridge` bridge manually with your custom
    settings, using the `docker network create` command.
    This example uses the subnet `10.11.0.0/16`. For a full list of customizable
    options, see [Bridge driver options](../engine/reference/commandline/network_create.md#bridge-driver-options).

    ```bash
    $ docker network create \
    --subnet 10.11.0.0/16 \
    --opt com.docker.network.bridge.name=docker_gwbridge \
    --opt com.docker.network.bridge.enable_icc=false \
    --opt com.docker.network.bridge.enable_ip_masquerade=true \
    docker_gwbridge
    ```

5.  Initialize or join the swarm. Since the bridge already exists, Docker does
    not create it with automatic settings.

## Operations for swarm services

### Publish ports on an overlay network

Swarm services connected to the same overlay network effectively expose all
ports to each other. For a port to be accessible outside of the service, that
port must be _published_ using the `-p` or `--publish` flag on `docker service
create` or `docker service update`. Both the legacy colon-separated syntax and
the newer comma-separated value syntax are supported. The longer syntax is
preferred because it is somewhat self-documenting.

<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Flag value</th>
<th>Description</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tr>
<td><tt>-p 8080:80</tt> or<br /><tt>-p published=8080,target=80</tt></td>
<td>Map TCP port 80 on the service to port 8080 on the routing mesh.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><tt>-p 8080:80/udp</tt> or<br /><tt>-p published=8080,target=80,protocol=udp</tt></td>
<td>Map UDP port 80 on the service to port 8080 on the routing mesh.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><tt>-p 8080:80/tcp -p 8080:80/udp</tt> or <br /><tt>-p published=8080,target=80,protocol=tcp -p published=8080,target=80,protocol=udp</tt></td>
<td>Map TCP port 80 on the service to TCP port 8080 on the routing mesh, and map UDP port 80 on the service to UDP port 8080 on the routing mesh.</td>
</tr>
</table>

### Bypass the routing mesh for a swarm service

By default, swarm services which publish ports do so using the routing mesh.
When you connect to a published port on any swarm node (whether it is running a
given service or not), you are redirected to a worker which is running that
service, transparently. Effectively, Docker acts as a load balancer for your
swarm services. Services using the routing mesh are running in _virtual IP (VIP)
mode_. Even a service running on each node (by means of the `--mode global`
flag) uses the routing mesh. When using the routing mesh, there is no guarantee
about which Docker node services client requests.

To bypass the routing mesh, you can start a service using _DNS Round Robin
(DNSRR) mode_, by setting the `--endpoint-mode` flag to `dnsrr`. You must run
your own load balancer in front of the service. A DNS query for the service name
on the Docker host returns a list of IP addresses for the nodes running the
service. Configure your load balancer to consume this list and balance the
traffic across the nodes.

### Separate control and data traffic

By default, control traffic relating to swarm management and traffic to and from
your applications runs over the same network, though the swarm control traffic
is encrypted. You can configure Docker to use separate network interfaces for
handling the two different types of traffic. When you initialize or join the
swarm, specify `--advertise-addr` and `--datapath-addr` separately. You must do
this for each node joining the swarm.

## Operations for standalone containers on overlay networks

### Attach a standalone container to an overlay network

The `ingress` network is created without the `--attachable` flag, which means
that only swarm services can use it, and not standalone containers. You can
connect standalone containers to user-defined overlay networks which are created
with the `--attachable` flag. This gives standalone containers running on
different Docker daemons the ability to communicate without the need to set up
routing on the individual Docker daemon hosts.

### Publish ports

| Flag value                      | Description                                                                                                                                     |
|---------------------------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| `-p 8080:80`                    | Map TCP port 80 in the container to port 8080 on the overlay network.                                                                               |
| `-p 8080:80/udp`                | Map UDP port 80 in the container to port 8080 on the overlay network.                                                                               |
| `-p 8080:80/sctp`               | Map SCTP port 80 in the container to port 8080 on the overlay network.                                                                              |
| `-p 8080:80/tcp -p 8080:80/udp` | Map TCP port 80 in the container to TCP port 8080 on the overlay network, and map UDP port 80 in the container to UDP port 8080 on the overlay network. |

### Container discovery

For most situations, you should connect to the service name, which is load-balanced and handled by all containers ("tasks") backing the service. To get a list of all tasks backing the service, do a DNS lookup for `tasks.<service-name>.`

## Next steps

- Go through the [overlay networking tutorial](network-tutorial-overlay.md)
- Learn about [networking from the container's point of view](../config/containers/container-networking.md)
- Learn about [standalone bridge networks](bridge.md)
- Learn about [Macvlan networks](macvlan.md)
