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Calico Enterprise 3.19 (latest) documentation

Networking

The Calico Enterprise network plugins provide a range of networking options to fit your implementation and maximize performance.

Getting started

Determine best networking option

Learn about the different networking options Calico Enterprise supports so you can choose the best option for your needs.

Networking overview

Learn about networking layers, packets, IP addressing, and routing.

Kubernetes network model

Learn network behaviors of the Kubernetes network model.

Configuring networking

Configure BGP peering

Configure BGP peering with full mesh, node-specific peering, ToR, and/or Calico route reflectors.

Deploy a dual ToR cluster

Configure a dual plane cluster for redundant connectivity between workloads.

Configure multiple Calico Enterprise networks on a pod

Configure a cluster with multiple Calico Enterprise networks on each pod, and enforce security using Calico Enterprise tiered network policy.

Overlay networking

Configure Calico to use IP in IP or VXLAN overlay networking so the underlying network doesn’t need to understand pod addresses.

Advertise Kubernetes service IP addresses

Configure Calico to advertise Kubernetes service cluster IPs and external IPs outside the cluster using BGP.

Configure MTU to maximize network performance

Optimize network performance for workloads by configuring the MTU in Calico to best suit your underlying network.

Custom BGP configuration

Customize your BGP configuration.

Configure outgoing NAT

Configure networking to perform outbound NAT for connections from pods to outside of the cluster.

Use a specific MAC address for a pod

Specify the MAC address for a pod instead of allowing the operating system to assign one

Use NodeLocal DNSCache in your cluster

Install NodeLocal DNSCache

IP address management

Configure BGP peering

Configure BGP peering with full mesh, node-specific peering, ToR, and/or Calico route reflectors.

Deploy a dual ToR cluster

Configure a dual plane cluster for redundant connectivity between workloads.

Configure multiple Calico Enterprise networks on a pod

Configure a cluster with multiple Calico Enterprise networks on each pod, and enforce security using Calico Enterprise tiered network policy.

Overlay networking

Configure Calico to use IP in IP or VXLAN overlay networking so the underlying network doesn’t need to understand pod addresses.

Advertise Kubernetes service IP addresses

Configure Calico to advertise Kubernetes service cluster IPs and external IPs outside the cluster using BGP.

Configure MTU to maximize network performance

Optimize network performance for workloads by configuring the MTU in Calico to best suit your underlying network.

Custom BGP configuration

Customize your BGP configuration.

Configure outgoing NAT

Configure networking to perform outbound NAT for connections from pods to outside of the cluster.

Use a specific MAC address for a pod

Specify the MAC address for a pod instead of allowing the operating system to assign one

Use NodeLocal DNSCache in your cluster

Install NodeLocal DNSCache

Egress gateways

Configure egress gateways, on-premises

Configure specific application traffic to exit the cluster through an egress gateway.

Configure egress gateways, Azure

Configure specific application traffic to exit the cluster through an egress gateway with a native Azure IP address.

Configure egress gateways, AWS

Configure specific application traffic to exit the cluster through an egress gateway with a native AWS IP address.

Optimize egress networking for workloads with long-lived TCP connections

React to egress gateway maintenance windows and minimize the impact of egress gateway downtime on sensitive workloads

Configure egress traffic to multiple external networks

Allows workloads from different namespaces of a Kubernetes cluster to egress onto different external networks that (may) have overlapping IPs with each other.

Troubleshoot egress gateways

Use checklist to troubleshoot common problems.