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Calico Open Source 3.29 (latest) documentation

Configuring Felix

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The following tables detail the configuration file and environment variable parameters. For FelixConfiguration resource settings, refer to Felix Configuration Resource.

Configuration for Felix is read from one of four possible locations, in order, as follows.

  1. Environment variables.
  2. The Felix configuration file.
  3. Host-specific FelixConfiguration resources (node.<nodename>).
  4. The global FelixConfiguration resource (default).

The value of any configuration parameter is the value read from the first location containing a value. For example, if an environment variable contains a value, it takes top precedence.

If not set in any of these locations, most configuration parameters have defaults, and it should be rare to have to explicitly set them.

The full list of parameters which can be set is as follows.

Spec

Datastore connection

DatastoreType

AttributeValue
KeyDatastoreType
Description

Controls which datastore driver Felix will use. Typically, this is detected from the environment and it does not need to be set manually. (For example, if KUBECONFIG is set, the kubernetes datastore driver will be used by default).

SchemaOne of: etcdv3, kubernetes (case insensitive)
Defaultetcdv3

EtcdAddr

AttributeValue
KeyEtcdAddr
Description

When using the etcdv3 datastore driver, the etcd server and port to connect to. If EtcdEndpoints is also specified, it takes precedence.

SchemaString matching regex ^[^:/]+:\d+$
Default127.0.0.1:2379

EtcdCaFile

AttributeValue
KeyEtcdCaFile
Description

When using the etcdv3 datastore driver, path to TLS CA file to use when connecting to etcd. If the CA file is specified, the other TLS parameters are mandatory.

SchemaPath to file, which must exist
Defaultnone

EtcdCertFile

AttributeValue
KeyEtcdCertFile
Description

When using the etcdv3 datastore driver, path to TLS certificate file to use when connecting to etcd. If the certificate file is specified, the other TLS parameters are mandatory.

SchemaPath to file, which must exist
Defaultnone

EtcdEndpoints

AttributeValue
KeyEtcdEndpoints
Description

When using the etcdv3 datastore driver, comma-delimited list of etcd endpoints to connect to, replaces EtcdAddr and EtcdScheme.

SchemaList of HTTP endpoints: comma-delimited list of http(s)://hostname:port
Defaultnone

EtcdKeyFile

AttributeValue
KeyEtcdKeyFile
Description

When using the etcdv3 datastore driver, path to TLS private key file to use when connecting to etcd. If the key file is specified, the other TLS parameters are mandatory.

SchemaPath to file, which must exist
Defaultnone

EtcdScheme

AttributeValue
KeyEtcdScheme
Description

EtcdAddr: when using the etcdv3 datastore driver, the URL scheme to use. If EtcdEndpoints is also specified, it takes precedence.

SchemaOne of: http, https (case insensitive)
Defaulthttp

FelixHostname

AttributeValue
KeyFelixHostname
Description

The name of this node, used to identify resources in the datastore that belong to this node. Auto-detected from the node's hostname if not provided.

SchemaString matching regex ^[a-zA-Z0-9_.-]+$
Defaultnone

TyphaAddr

AttributeValue
KeyTyphaAddr
Description

If set, tells Felix to connect to Typha at the given address and port. Overrides TyphaK8sServiceName.

SchemaString matching regex ^[^:/]+:\d+$
Defaultnone

TyphaCAFile

AttributeValue
KeyTyphaCAFile
Description

Path to the TLS CA file to use when communicating with Typha. If this parameter is specified, the other TLS parameters must also be specified.

SchemaPath to file, which must exist
Defaultnone

TyphaCN

AttributeValue
KeyTyphaCN
Description

Common name to use when authenticating to Typha over TLS. If any TLS parameters are specified then one of TyphaCN and TyphaURISAN must be set.

SchemaString
Defaultnone

TyphaCertFile

AttributeValue
KeyTyphaCertFile
Description

Path to the TLS certificate to use when communicating with Typha. If this parameter is specified, the other TLS parameters must also be specified.

SchemaPath to file, which must exist
Defaultnone

TyphaK8sNamespace

AttributeValue
KeyTyphaK8sNamespace
Description

Namespace to look in when looking for Typha's service (see TyphaK8sServiceName).

SchemaString
Defaultkube-system

TyphaK8sServiceName

AttributeValue
KeyTyphaK8sServiceName
Description

If set, tells Felix to connect to Typha by looking up the Endpoints of the given Kubernetes Service in namespace specified by TyphaK8sNamespace.

SchemaString
Defaultnone

TyphaKeyFile

AttributeValue
KeyTyphaKeyFile
Description

Path to the TLS private key to use when communicating with Typha. If this parameter is specified, the other TLS parameters must also be specified.

SchemaPath to file, which must exist
Defaultnone

TyphaReadTimeout

AttributeValue
KeyTyphaReadTimeout
Description

Read timeout when reading from the Typha connection. If typha sends no data for this long, Felix will exit and restart. (Note that Typha sends regular pings so traffic is always expected.)

SchemaSeconds (floating point)
Default30

TyphaURISAN

AttributeValue
KeyTyphaURISAN
Description

URI SAN to use when authenticating to Typha over TLS. If any TLS parameters are specified then one of TyphaCN and TyphaURISAN must be set.

SchemaString
Defaultnone

TyphaWriteTimeout

AttributeValue
KeyTyphaWriteTimeout
Description

Write timeout when writing data to Typha.

SchemaSeconds (floating point)
Default10

Process: Feature detection/overrides

FeatureDetectOverride

AttributeValue
KeyFeatureDetectOverride
Description

Used to override feature detection based on auto-detected platform capabilities. Values are specified in a comma separated list with no spaces, example; "SNATFullyRandom=true,MASQFullyRandom=false,RestoreSupportsLock=". A value of "true" or "false" will force enable/disable feature, empty or omitted values fall back to auto-detection.

SchemaComma-delimited list of key=value pairs
Defaultnone

FeatureGates

AttributeValue
KeyFeatureGates
Description

Used to enable or disable tech-preview Calico features. Values are specified in a comma separated list with no spaces, example; "BPFConnectTimeLoadBalancingWorkaround=enabled,XyZ=false". This is used to enable features that are not fully production ready.

SchemaComma-delimited list of key=value pairs
Defaultnone

Process: Go runtime

GoGCThreshold

AttributeValue
KeyGoGCThreshold
Description

Sets the Go runtime's garbage collection threshold. I.e. the percentage that the heap is allowed to grow before garbage collection is triggered. In general, doubling the value halves the CPU time spent doing GC, but it also doubles peak GC memory overhead. A special value of -1 can be used to disable GC entirely; this should only be used in conjunction with the GoMemoryLimitMB setting.

This setting is overridden by the GOGC environment variable.

SchemaInteger: [-1,263-1]
Default40

GoMaxProcs

AttributeValue
KeyGoMaxProcs
Description

Sets the maximum number of CPUs that the Go runtime will use concurrently. A value of -1 means "use the system default"; typically the number of real CPUs on the system.

this setting is overridden by the GOMAXPROCS environment variable.

SchemaInteger: [-1,263-1]
Default-1

GoMemoryLimitMB

AttributeValue
KeyGoMemoryLimitMB
Description

Sets a (soft) memory limit for the Go runtime in MB. The Go runtime will try to keep its memory usage under the limit by triggering GC as needed. To avoid thrashing, it will exceed the limit if GC starts to take more than 50% of the process's CPU time. A value of -1 disables the memory limit.

Note that the memory limit, if used, must be considerably less than any hard resource limit set at the container or pod level. This is because felix is not the only process that must run in the container or pod.

This setting is overridden by the GOMEMLIMIT environment variable.

SchemaInteger: [-1,263-1]
Default-1

Process: Health port and timeouts

HealthEnabled

AttributeValue
KeyHealthEnabled
Description

If set to true, enables Felix's health port, which provides readiness and liveness endpoints.

SchemaBoolean: true, 1, yes, y, t accepted as True; false, 0, no, n, f accepted (case insensitively) as False.
Defaultfalse

HealthHost

AttributeValue
KeyHealthHost
Description

The host that the health server should bind to.

SchemaString matching regex ^[a-zA-Z0-9:._+-]{1,64}$
Defaultlocalhost

HealthPort

AttributeValue
KeyHealthPort
Description

The TCP port that the health server should bind to.

SchemaInteger: [0,65535]
Default9099

HealthTimeoutOverrides

AttributeValue
KeyHealthTimeoutOverrides
Description

Allows the internal watchdog timeouts of individual subcomponents to be overridden. This is useful for working around "false positive" liveness timeouts that can occur in particularly stressful workloads or if CPU is constrained. For a list of active subcomponents, see Felix's logs.

SchemaComma-delimited list of <key>=<duration> pairs, where durations use Go's standard format (e.g. 1s, 1m, 1h3m2s)
Defaultnone

Process: Logging

LogDebugFilenameRegex

AttributeValue
KeyLogDebugFilenameRegex
Description

Controls which source code files have their Debug log output included in the logs. Only logs from files with names that match the given regular expression are included. The filter only applies to Debug level logs.

SchemaRegular expression
Defaultnone

LogFilePath

AttributeValue
KeyLogFilePath
Description

The full path to the Felix log. Set to none to disable file logging.

SchemaPath to file
Default/var/log/calico/felix.log

LogPrefix

AttributeValue
KeyLogPrefix
Description

The log prefix that Felix uses when rendering LOG rules.

SchemaString
Defaultcalico-packet

LogSeverityFile

AttributeValue
KeyLogSeverityFile
Description

The log severity above which logs are sent to the log file.

SchemaOne of: DEBUG, ERROR, FATAL, INFO, WARNING (case insensitive)
DefaultINFO

LogSeverityScreen

AttributeValue
KeyLogSeverityScreen
Description

The log severity above which logs are sent to the stdout.

SchemaOne of: DEBUG, ERROR, FATAL, INFO, WARNING (case insensitive)
DefaultINFO

LogSeveritySys

AttributeValue
KeyLogSeveritySys
Description

The log severity above which logs are sent to the syslog. Set to None for no logging to syslog.

SchemaOne of: DEBUG, ERROR, FATAL, INFO, WARNING (case insensitive)
DefaultINFO

Process: Prometheus metrics

PrometheusGoMetricsEnabled

AttributeValue
KeyPrometheusGoMetricsEnabled
Description

Disables Go runtime metrics collection, which the Prometheus client does by default, when set to false. This reduces the number of metrics reported, reducing Prometheus load.

SchemaBoolean: true, 1, yes, y, t accepted as True; false, 0, no, n, f accepted (case insensitively) as False.
Defaulttrue

PrometheusMetricsEnabled

AttributeValue
KeyPrometheusMetricsEnabled
Description

Enables the Prometheus metrics server in Felix if set to true.

SchemaBoolean: true, 1, yes, y, t accepted as True; false, 0, no, n, f accepted (case insensitively) as False.
Defaultfalse

PrometheusMetricsHost

AttributeValue
KeyPrometheusMetricsHost
Description

The host that the Prometheus metrics server should bind to.

SchemaString matching regex ^[a-zA-Z0-9:._+-]{1,64}$
Defaultnone

PrometheusMetricsPort

AttributeValue
KeyPrometheusMetricsPort
Description

The TCP port that the Prometheus metrics server should bind to.

SchemaInteger: [0,65535]
Default9091

PrometheusProcessMetricsEnabled

AttributeValue
KeyPrometheusProcessMetricsEnabled
Description

Disables process metrics collection, which the Prometheus client does by default, when set to false. This reduces the number of metrics reported, reducing Prometheus load.

SchemaBoolean: true, 1, yes, y, t accepted as True; false, 0, no, n, f accepted (case insensitively) as False.
Defaulttrue

PrometheusWireGuardMetricsEnabled

AttributeValue
KeyPrometheusWireGuardMetricsEnabled
Description

Disables wireguard metrics collection, which the Prometheus client does by default, when set to false. This reduces the number of metrics reported, reducing Prometheus load.

SchemaBoolean: true, 1, yes, y, t accepted as True; false, 0, no, n, f accepted (case insensitively) as False.
Defaulttrue

Dataplane: Common

AllowIPIPPacketsFromWorkloads

AttributeValue
KeyAllowIPIPPacketsFromWorkloads
Description

Controls whether Felix will add a rule to drop IPIP encapsulated traffic from workloads.

SchemaBoolean: true, 1, yes, y, t accepted as True; false, 0, no, n, f accepted (case insensitively) as False.
Defaultfalse

AllowVXLANPacketsFromWorkloads

AttributeValue
KeyAllowVXLANPacketsFromWorkloads
Description

Controls whether Felix will add a rule to drop VXLAN encapsulated traffic from workloads.

SchemaBoolean: true, 1, yes, y, t accepted as True; false, 0, no, n, f accepted (case insensitively) as False.
Defaultfalse

ChainInsertMode

AttributeValue
KeyChainInsertMode
Description

Controls whether Felix hooks the kernel's top-level iptables chains by inserting a rule at the top of the chain or by appending a rule at the bottom. insert is the safe default since it prevents Calico's rules from being bypassed. If you switch to append mode, be sure that the other rules in the chains signal acceptance by falling through to the Calico rules, otherwise the Calico policy will be bypassed.

SchemaOne of: append, insert (case insensitive)
Defaultinsert

DataplaneDriver

AttributeValue
KeyDataplaneDriver
Description

Filename of the external dataplane driver to use. Only used if UseInternalDataplaneDriver is set to false.

SchemaPath to executable, which must exist. If not an absolute path, the directory containing this binary and the system path will be searched.
Defaultcalico-iptables-plugin

DataplaneWatchdogTimeout

AttributeValue
KeyDataplaneWatchdogTimeout
Description

The readiness/liveness timeout used for Felix's (internal) dataplane driver. Deprecated: replaced by the generic HealthTimeoutOverrides.

SchemaSeconds (floating point)
Default90 (1m30s)

DefaultEndpointToHostAction

AttributeValue
KeyDefaultEndpointToHostAction
Description

Controls what happens to traffic that goes from a workload endpoint to the host itself (after the endpoint's egress policy is applied). By default, Calico blocks traffic from workload endpoints to the host itself with an iptables "DROP" action. If you want to allow some or all traffic from endpoint to host, set this parameter to RETURN or ACCEPT. Use RETURN if you have your own rules in the iptables "INPUT" chain; Calico will insert its rules at the top of that chain, then "RETURN" packets to the "INPUT" chain once it has completed processing workload endpoint egress policy. Use ACCEPT to unconditionally accept packets from workloads after processing workload endpoint egress policy.

SchemaOne of: ACCEPT, DROP, RETURN (case insensitive)
DefaultDROP

DeviceRouteProtocol

AttributeValue
KeyDeviceRouteProtocol
Description

Controls the protocol to set on routes programmed by Felix. The protocol is an 8-bit label used to identify the owner of the route.

SchemaInteger
Default3

DeviceRouteSourceAddress

AttributeValue
KeyDeviceRouteSourceAddress
Description

IPv4 address to set as the source hint for routes programmed by Felix. When not set the source address for local traffic from host to workload will be determined by the kernel.

SchemaIPv4 address
Defaultnone

DeviceRouteSourceAddressIPv6

AttributeValue
KeyDeviceRouteSourceAddressIPv6
Description

IPv6 address to set as the source hint for routes programmed by Felix. When not set the source address for local traffic from host to workload will be determined by the kernel.

SchemaIPv6 address
Defaultnone

DisableConntrackInvalidCheck

AttributeValue
KeyDisableConntrackInvalidCheck
Description

Disables the check for invalid connections in conntrack. While the conntrack invalid check helps to detect malicious traffic, it can also cause issues with certain multi-NIC scenarios.

SchemaBoolean: true, 1, yes, y, t accepted as True; false, 0, no, n, f accepted (case insensitively) as False.
Defaultfalse

EndpointStatusPathPrefix

AttributeValue
KeyEndpointStatusPathPrefix
Description

The path to the directory where endpoint status will be written. Endpoint status file reporting is disabled if field is left empty.

Chosen directory should match the directory used by the CNI plugin for PodStartupDelay.

SchemaPath to file
Defaultnone

ExternalNodesCIDRList

AttributeValue
KeyExternalNodesCIDRList
Description

A list of CIDR's of external, non-Calico nodes from which VXLAN/IPIP overlay traffic will be allowed. By default, external tunneled traffic is blocked to reduce attack surface.

SchemaComma-delimited list of CIDRs
Defaultnone

FailsafeInboundHostPorts

AttributeValue
KeyFailsafeInboundHostPorts
Description

A list of ProtoPort struct objects including UDP/TCP/SCTP ports and CIDRs that Felix will allow incoming traffic to host endpoints on irrespective of the security policy. This is useful to avoid accidentally cutting off a host with incorrect configuration. For backwards compatibility, if the protocol is not specified, it defaults to "tcp". If a CIDR is not specified, it will allow traffic from all addresses. To disable all inbound host ports, use the value "[]". The default value allows ssh access, DHCP, BGP, etcd and the Kubernetes API.

SchemaComma-delimited list of numeric ports with optional protocol and CIDR:(tcp|udp):<cidr>:<port>, (tcp|udp):<port> or <port>. IPv6 CIDRs must be enclosed in square brackets.
Defaulttcp:22,udp:68,tcp:179,tcp:2379,tcp:2380,tcp:5473,tcp:6443,tcp:6666,tcp:6667

FailsafeOutboundHostPorts

AttributeValue
KeyFailsafeOutboundHostPorts
Description

A list of PortProto struct objects including UDP/TCP/SCTP ports and CIDRs that Felix will allow outgoing traffic from host endpoints to irrespective of the security policy. This is useful to avoid accidentally cutting off a host with incorrect configuration. For backwards compatibility, if the protocol is not specified, it defaults to "tcp". If a CIDR is not specified, it will allow traffic from all addresses. To disable all outbound host ports, use the value "[]". The default value opens etcd's standard ports to ensure that Felix does not get cut off from etcd as well as allowing DHCP, DNS, BGP and the Kubernetes API.

SchemaComma-delimited list of numeric ports with optional protocol and CIDR:(tcp|udp):<cidr>:<port>, (tcp|udp):<port> or <port>. IPv6 CIDRs must be enclosed in square brackets.
Defaultudp:53,udp:67,tcp:179,tcp:2379,tcp:2380,tcp:5473,tcp:6443,tcp:6666,tcp:6667

FloatingIPs

AttributeValue
KeyFloatingIPs
Description

Configures whether or not Felix will program non-OpenStack floating IP addresses. (OpenStack-derived floating IPs are always programmed, regardless of this setting.)

SchemaOne of: Disabled, Enabled (case insensitive)
DefaultDisabled

IPForwarding

AttributeValue
KeyIPForwarding
Description

Controls whether Felix sets the host sysctls to enable IP forwarding. IP forwarding is required when using Calico for workload networking. This should be disabled only on hosts where Calico is used solely for host protection.

SchemaOne of: Disabled, Enabled (case insensitive)
DefaultEnabled

InterfaceExclude

AttributeValue
KeyInterfaceExclude
Description

A comma-separated list of interface names that should be excluded when Felix is resolving host endpoints. The default value ensures that Felix ignores Kubernetes' internal kube-ipvs0 device. If you want to exclude multiple interface names using a single value, the list supports regular expressions. For regular expressions you must wrap the value with /. For example having values /^kube/,veth1 will exclude all interfaces that begin with kube and also the interface veth1.

SchemaComma-delimited list of Linux interface names/regex patterns. Regex patterns must start/end with /.
Defaultkube-ipvs0

InterfacePrefix

AttributeValue
KeyInterfacePrefix
Description

The interface name prefix that identifies workload endpoints and so distinguishes them from host endpoint interfaces. Note: in environments other than bare metal, the orchestrators configure this appropriately. For example our Kubernetes and Docker integrations set the 'cali' value, and our OpenStack integration sets the 'tap' value.

SchemaString matching regex ^[a-zA-Z0-9_-]{1,15}(,[a-zA-Z0-9_-]{1,15})*$
Defaultcali

InterfaceRefreshInterval

AttributeValue
KeyInterfaceRefreshInterval
Description

The period at which Felix rescans local interfaces to verify their state. The rescan can be disabled by setting the interval to 0.

SchemaSeconds (floating point)
Default90 (1m30s)

Ipv6Support

AttributeValue
KeyIpv6Support
Description

Controls whether Felix enables support for IPv6 (if supported by the in-use dataplane).

SchemaBoolean: true, 1, yes, y, t accepted as True; false, 0, no, n, f accepted (case insensitively) as False.
Defaulttrue

MTUIfacePattern

AttributeValue
KeyMTUIfacePattern
Description

A regular expression that controls which interfaces Felix should scan in order to calculate the host's MTU. This should not match workload interfaces (usually named cali...).

SchemaRegular expression
Default^((en|wl|ww|sl|ib)[Pcopsvx].*|(eth|wlan|wwan).*)

NATOutgoingAddress

AttributeValue
KeyNATOutgoingAddress
Description

Specifies an address to use when performing source NAT for traffic in a natOutgoing pool that is leaving the network. By default the address used is an address on the interface the traffic is leaving on (i.e. it uses the iptables MASQUERADE target).

SchemaIPv4 address
Defaultnone

NATPortRange

AttributeValue
KeyNATPortRange
Description

Specifies the range of ports that is used for port mapping when doing outgoing NAT. When unset the default behavior of the network stack is used.

SchemaPort range: either a single number in [0,65535] or a range of numbers n:m
Defaultnone

NFTablesMode

AttributeValue
KeyNFTablesMode
Description

Configures nftables support in Felix.

SchemaOne of: Disabled, Enabled (case insensitive)
DefaultDisabled

NetlinkTimeoutSecs

AttributeValue
KeyNetlinkTimeoutSecs
Description

The timeout when talking to the kernel over the netlink protocol, used for programming routes, rules, and other kernel objects.

SchemaSeconds (floating point)
Default10 (10s)

PolicySyncPathPrefix

AttributeValue
KeyPolicySyncPathPrefix
Description

Used to by Felix to communicate policy changes to external services, like Application layer policy.

SchemaPath to file
Defaultnone

RemoveExternalRoutes

AttributeValue
KeyRemoveExternalRoutes
Description

Controls whether Felix will remove unexpected routes to workload interfaces. Felix will always clean up expected routes that use the configured DeviceRouteProtocol. To add your own routes, you must use a distinct protocol (in addition to setting this field to false).

SchemaBoolean: true, 1, yes, y, t accepted as True; false, 0, no, n, f accepted (case insensitively) as False.
Defaulttrue

RouteRefreshInterval

AttributeValue
KeyRouteRefreshInterval
Description

The period at which Felix re-checks the routes in the dataplane to ensure that no other process has accidentally broken Calico's rules. Set to 0 to disable route refresh.

SchemaSeconds (floating point)
Default90 (1m30s)

RouteSource

AttributeValue
KeyRouteSource
Description

Configures where Felix gets its routing information. - WorkloadIPs: use workload endpoints to construct routes. - CalicoIPAM: the default - use IPAM data to construct routes.

SchemaOne of: CalicoIPAM, WorkloadIPs (case insensitive)
DefaultCalicoIPAM

RouteSyncDisabled

AttributeValue
KeyRouteSyncDisabled
Description

Will disable all operations performed on the route table. Set to true to run in network-policy mode only.

SchemaBoolean: true, 1, yes, y, t accepted as True; false, 0, no, n, f accepted (case insensitively) as False.
Defaultfalse

RouteTableRange

AttributeValue
KeyRouteTableRange
Description

Deprecated in favor of RouteTableRanges. Calico programs additional Linux route tables for various purposes. RouteTableRange specifies the indices of the route tables that Calico should use.

SchemaRange of route table indices n-m, where n and m are integers in [0,250].
Defaultnone

RouteTableRanges

AttributeValue
KeyRouteTableRanges
Description

Calico programs additional Linux route tables for various purposes. RouteTableRanges specifies a set of table index ranges that Calico should use. DeprecatesRouteTableRange, overrides RouteTableRange.

SchemaComma or space-delimited list of route table ranges of the form n-m where n and m are integers in [0,4294967295]. The sum of the sizes of all ranges may not exceed 65535.
Defaultnone

ServiceLoopPrevention

AttributeValue
KeyServiceLoopPrevention
Description

When service IP advertisement is enabled, prevent routing loops to service IPs that are not in use, by dropping or rejecting packets that do not get DNAT'd by kube-proxy. Unless set to "Disabled", in which case such routing loops continue to be allowed.

SchemaOne of: Disabled, Drop, Reject (case insensitive)
DefaultDrop

SidecarAccelerationEnabled

AttributeValue
KeySidecarAccelerationEnabled
Description

Enables experimental sidecar acceleration.

SchemaBoolean: true, 1, yes, y, t accepted as True; false, 0, no, n, f accepted (case insensitively) as False.
Defaultfalse

UseInternalDataplaneDriver

AttributeValue
KeyUseInternalDataplaneDriver
Description

If true, Felix will use its internal dataplane programming logic. If false, it will launch an external dataplane driver and communicate with it over protobuf.

SchemaBoolean: true, 1, yes, y, t accepted as True; false, 0, no, n, f accepted (case insensitively) as False.
Defaulttrue

WorkloadSourceSpoofing

AttributeValue
KeyWorkloadSourceSpoofing
Description

Controls whether pods can use the allowedSourcePrefixes annotation to send traffic with a source IP address that is not theirs. This is disabled by default. When set to "Any", pods can request any prefix.

SchemaOne of: Any, Disabled (case insensitive)
DefaultDisabled

Dataplane: iptables

IpsetsRefreshInterval

AttributeValue
KeyIpsetsRefreshInterval
Description

Controls the period at which Felix re-checks all IP sets to look for discrepancies. Set to 0 to disable the periodic refresh.

SchemaSeconds (floating point)
Default90 (1m30s)

IptablesBackend

AttributeValue
KeyIptablesBackend
Description

Controls which backend of iptables will be used. The default is Auto.

Warning: changing this on a running system can leave "orphaned" rules in the "other" backend. These should be cleaned up to avoid confusing interactions.

SchemaOne of: auto, legacy, nft (case insensitive)
Defaultauto

IptablesFilterAllowAction

AttributeValue
KeyIptablesFilterAllowAction
Description

Controls what happens to traffic that is accepted by a Felix policy chain in the iptables filter table (which is used for "normal" policy). The default will immediately Accept the traffic. Use Return to send the traffic back up to the system chains for further processing.

SchemaOne of: ACCEPT, RETURN (case insensitive)
DefaultACCEPT

IptablesFilterDenyAction

AttributeValue
KeyIptablesFilterDenyAction
Description

Controls what happens to traffic that is denied by network policy. By default Calico blocks traffic with an iptables "DROP" action. If you want to use "REJECT" action instead you can configure it in here.

SchemaOne of: DROP, REJECT (case insensitive)
DefaultDROP

IptablesLockFilePath

AttributeValue
KeyIptablesLockFilePath
Description

The location of the iptables lock file. You may need to change this if the lock file is not in its standard location (for example if you have mapped it into Felix's container at a different path).

SchemaPath to file
Default/run/xtables.lock

IptablesLockProbeIntervalMillis

AttributeValue
KeyIptablesLockProbeIntervalMillis
Description

When IptablesLockTimeout is enabled: the time that Felix will wait between attempts to acquire the iptables lock if it is not available. Lower values make Felix more responsive when the lock is contended, but use more CPU.

SchemaMilliseconds (floating point)
Default50 (50ms)

IptablesLockTimeoutSecs

AttributeValue
KeyIptablesLockTimeoutSecs
Description

The time that Felix itself will wait for the iptables lock (rather than delegating the lock handling to the iptables command).

Deprecated: iptables-restore v1.8+ always takes the lock, so enabling this feature results in deadlock.

SchemaSeconds (floating point)
Default0 (0s)

IptablesMangleAllowAction

AttributeValue
KeyIptablesMangleAllowAction
Description

Controls what happens to traffic that is accepted by a Felix policy chain in the iptables mangle table (which is used for "pre-DNAT" policy). The default will immediately Accept the traffic. Use Return to send the traffic back up to the system chains for further processing.

SchemaOne of: ACCEPT, RETURN (case insensitive)
DefaultACCEPT

IptablesMarkMask

AttributeValue
KeyIptablesMarkMask
Description

The mask that Felix selects its IPTables Mark bits from. Should be a 32 bit hexadecimal number with at least 8 bits set, none of which clash with any other mark bits in use on the system.

Schema32-bit bitmask (hex or deccimal allowed) with at least 2 bits set, example: 0xffff0000
Default0xffff0000

IptablesNATOutgoingInterfaceFilter

AttributeValue
KeyIptablesNATOutgoingInterfaceFilter
Description

This parameter can be used to limit the host interfaces on which Calico will apply SNAT to traffic leaving a Calico IPAM pool with "NAT outgoing" enabled. This can be useful if you have a main data interface, where traffic should be SNATted and a secondary device (such as the docker bridge) which is local to the host and doesn't require SNAT. This parameter uses the iptables interface matching syntax, which allows + as a wildcard. Most users will not need to set this. Example: if your data interfaces are eth0 and eth1 and you want to exclude the docker bridge, you could set this to eth+.

SchemaString matching regex ^[a-zA-Z0-9:._+-]{1,15}$
Defaultnone

IptablesPostWriteCheckIntervalSecs

AttributeValue
KeyIptablesPostWriteCheckIntervalSecs
Description

The period after Felix has done a write to the dataplane that it schedules an extra read back in order to check the write was not clobbered by another process. This should only occur if another application on the system doesn't respect the iptables lock.

SchemaSeconds (floating point)
Default5 (5s)

IptablesRefreshInterval

AttributeValue
KeyIptablesRefreshInterval
Description

The period at which Felix re-checks the IP sets in the dataplane to ensure that no other process has accidentally broken Calico's rules. Set to 0 to disable IP sets refresh. Note: the default for this value is lower than the other refresh intervals as a workaround for a Linux kernel bug that was fixed in kernel version 4.11. If you are using v4.11 or greater you may want to set this to, a higher value to reduce Felix CPU usage.

SchemaSeconds (floating point)
Default180 (3m0s)

KubeNodePortRanges

AttributeValue
KeyKubeNodePortRanges
Description

Holds list of port ranges used for service node ports. Only used if felix detects kube-proxy running in ipvs mode. Felix uses these ranges to separate host and workload traffic. .

SchemaList of port ranges: comma-delimited list of either single numbers in range [0,65535] or a ranges of numbers n:m
Default30000:32767

MaxIpsetSize

AttributeValue
KeyMaxIpsetSize
Description

The maximum number of IP addresses that can be stored in an IP set. Not applicable if using the nftables backend.

SchemaInteger
Default1048576

Dataplane: nftables

NftablesFilterAllowAction

AttributeValue
KeyNftablesFilterAllowAction
Description

Controls the nftables action that Felix uses to represent the "allow" policy verdict in the filter table. The default is to ACCEPT the traffic, which is a terminal action. Alternatively, RETURN can be used to return the traffic back to the top-level chain for further processing by your rules.

SchemaOne of: ACCEPT, RETURN (case insensitive)
DefaultACCEPT

NftablesFilterDenyAction

AttributeValue
KeyNftablesFilterDenyAction
Description

Controls what happens to traffic that is denied by network policy. By default, Calico blocks traffic with a "drop" action. If you want to use a "reject" action instead you can configure it here.

SchemaOne of: DROP, REJECT (case insensitive)
DefaultDROP

NftablesMangleAllowAction

AttributeValue
KeyNftablesMangleAllowAction
Description

Controls the nftables action that Felix uses to represent the "allow" policy verdict in the mangle table. The default is to ACCEPT the traffic, which is a terminal action. Alternatively, RETURN can be used to return the traffic back to the top-level chain for further processing by your rules.

SchemaOne of: ACCEPT, RETURN (case insensitive)
DefaultACCEPT

NftablesMarkMask

AttributeValue
KeyNftablesMarkMask
Description

The mask that Felix selects its nftables Mark bits from. Should be a 32 bit hexadecimal number with at least 8 bits set, none of which clash with any other mark bits in use on the system.

Schema32-bit bitmask (hex or deccimal allowed) with at least 2 bits set, example: 0xffff0000
Default0xffff0000

NftablesRefreshInterval

AttributeValue
KeyNftablesRefreshInterval
Description

Controls the interval at which Felix periodically refreshes the nftables rules.

SchemaSeconds (floating point)
Default180 (3m0s)

Dataplane: eBPF

BPFCTLBLogFilter

AttributeValue
KeyBPFCTLBLogFilter
Description

Specifies, what is logged by connect time load balancer when BPFLogLevel is debug. Currently has to be specified as 'all' when BPFLogFilters is set to see CTLB logs.

SchemaOne of: all (case insensitive)
Defaultnone

BPFConnectTimeLoadBalancing

AttributeValue
KeyBPFConnectTimeLoadBalancing
Description

When in BPF mode, controls whether Felix installs the connect-time load balancer. The connect-time load balancer is required for the host to be able to reach Kubernetes services and it improves the performance of pod-to-service connections.When set to TCP, connect time load balancing is available only for services with TCP ports.

SchemaOne of: Disabled, Enabled, TCP (case insensitive)
DefaultTCP

BPFConnectTimeLoadBalancingEnabled

AttributeValue
KeyBPFConnectTimeLoadBalancingEnabled
Description

When in BPF mode, controls whether Felix installs the connection-time load balancer. The connect-time load balancer is required for the host to be able to reach Kubernetes services and it improves the performance of pod-to-service connections. The only reason to disable it is for debugging purposes.

Deprecated: Use BPFConnectTimeLoadBalancing.

SchemaBoolean: true, 1, yes, y, t accepted as True; false, 0, no, n, f accepted (case insensitively) as False.
Defaultnone

BPFDSROptoutCIDRs

AttributeValue
KeyBPFDSROptoutCIDRs
Description

A list of CIDRs which are excluded from DSR. That is, clients in those CIDRs will access service node ports as if BPFExternalServiceMode was set to Tunnel.

SchemaComma-delimited list of CIDRs
Defaultnone

BPFDataIfacePattern

AttributeValue
KeyBPFDataIfacePattern
Description

A regular expression that controls which interfaces Felix should attach BPF programs to in order to catch traffic to/from the network. This needs to match the interfaces that Calico workload traffic flows over as well as any interfaces that handle incoming traffic to nodeports and services from outside the cluster. It should not match the workload interfaces (usually named cali...).

SchemaRegular expression
Default^((en|wl|ww|sl|ib)[Popsx].*|(eth|wlan|wwan|bond).*|tunl0$|vxlan.calico$|vxlan-v6.calico$|wireguard.cali$|wg-v6.cali$|egress.calico$)

BPFDisableGROForIfaces

AttributeValue
KeyBPFDisableGROForIfaces
Description

A regular expression that controls which interfaces Felix should disable the Generic Receive Offload [GRO] option. It should not match the workload interfaces (usually named cali...).

SchemaRegular expression
Defaultnone

BPFDisableUnprivileged

AttributeValue
KeyBPFDisableUnprivileged
Description

If enabled, Felix sets the kernel.unprivileged_bpf_disabled sysctl to disable unprivileged use of BPF. This ensures that unprivileged users cannot access Calico's BPF maps and cannot insert their own BPF programs to interfere with Calico's.

SchemaBoolean: true, 1, yes, y, t accepted as True; false, 0, no, n, f accepted (case insensitively) as False.
Defaulttrue

BPFEnabled

AttributeValue
KeyBPFEnabled
Description

If enabled Felix will use the BPF dataplane.

SchemaBoolean: true, 1, yes, y, t accepted as True; false, 0, no, n, f accepted (case insensitively) as False.
Defaultfalse

BPFEnforceRPF

AttributeValue
KeyBPFEnforceRPF
Description

Enforce strict RPF on all host interfaces with BPF programs regardless of what is the per-interfaces or global setting. Possible values are Disabled, Strict or Loose.

SchemaOne of: Disabled, Loose, Strict (case insensitive)
DefaultLoose

BPFExcludeCIDRsFromNAT

AttributeValue
KeyBPFExcludeCIDRsFromNAT
Description

A list of CIDRs that are to be excluded from NAT resolution so that host can handle them. A typical usecase is node local DNS cache.

SchemaComma-delimited list of CIDRs
Defaultnone

BPFExtToServiceConnmark

AttributeValue
KeyBPFExtToServiceConnmark
Description

In BPF mode, controls a 32bit mark that is set on connections from an external client to a local service. This mark allows us to control how packets of that connection are routed within the host and how is routing interpreted by RPF check.

SchemaInteger
Default0

BPFExternalServiceMode

AttributeValue
KeyBPFExternalServiceMode
Description

In BPF mode, controls how connections from outside the cluster to services (node ports and cluster IPs) are forwarded to remote workloads. If set to "Tunnel" then both request and response traffic is tunneled to the remote node. If set to "DSR", the request traffic is tunneled but the response traffic is sent directly from the remote node. In "DSR" mode, the remote node appears to use the IP of the ingress node; this requires a permissive L2 network.

SchemaOne of: dsr, tunnel (case insensitive)
Defaulttunnel

BPFForceTrackPacketsFromIfaces

AttributeValue
KeyBPFForceTrackPacketsFromIfaces
Description

In BPF mode, forces traffic from these interfaces to skip Calico's iptables NOTRACK rule, allowing traffic from those interfaces to be tracked by Linux conntrack. Should only be used for interfaces that are not used for the Calico fabric. For example, a docker bridge device for non-Calico-networked containers.

SchemaComma-delimited list of strings, each matching the regex ^[a-zA-Z0-9:._+-]{1,15}$
Defaultdocker+

BPFHostConntrackBypass

AttributeValue
KeyBPFHostConntrackBypass
Description

Controls whether to bypass Linux conntrack in BPF mode for workloads and services.

SchemaBoolean: true, 1, yes, y, t accepted as True; false, 0, no, n, f accepted (case insensitively) as False.
Defaulttrue

BPFHostNetworkedNATWithoutCTLB

AttributeValue
KeyBPFHostNetworkedNATWithoutCTLB
Description

When in BPF mode, controls whether Felix does a NAT without CTLB. This along with BPFConnectTimeLoadBalancing determines the CTLB behavior.

SchemaOne of: Disabled, Enabled (case insensitive)
DefaultEnabled

BPFKubeProxyEndpointSlicesEnabled

AttributeValue
KeyBPFKubeProxyEndpointSlicesEnabled
Description

Deprecated and has no effect. BPF kube-proxy always accepts endpoint slices. This option will be removed in the next release.

SchemaBoolean: true, 1, yes, y, t accepted as True; false, 0, no, n, f accepted (case insensitively) as False.
Defaulttrue

BPFKubeProxyIptablesCleanupEnabled

AttributeValue
KeyBPFKubeProxyIptablesCleanupEnabled
Description

If enabled in BPF mode, Felix will proactively clean up the upstream Kubernetes kube-proxy's iptables chains. Should only be enabled if kube-proxy is not running.

SchemaBoolean: true, 1, yes, y, t accepted as True; false, 0, no, n, f accepted (case insensitively) as False.
Defaulttrue

BPFKubeProxyMinSyncPeriod

AttributeValue
KeyBPFKubeProxyMinSyncPeriod
Description

In BPF mode, controls the minimum time between updates to the dataplane for Felix's embedded kube-proxy. Lower values give reduced set-up latency. Higher values reduce Felix CPU usage by batching up more work.

SchemaSeconds (floating point)
Default1 (1s)

BPFL3IfacePattern

AttributeValue
KeyBPFL3IfacePattern
Description

A regular expression that allows to list tunnel devices like wireguard or vxlan (i.e., L3 devices) in addition to BPFDataIfacePattern. That is, tunnel interfaces not created by Calico, that Calico workload traffic flows over as well as any interfaces that handle incoming traffic to nodeports and services from outside the cluster.

SchemaRegular expression
Defaultnone

BPFLogFilters

AttributeValue
KeyBPFLogFilters
Description

A map of key=values where the value is a pcap filter expression and the key is an interface name with 'all' denoting all interfaces, 'weps' all workload endpoints and 'heps' all host endpoints.

When specified as an env var, it accepts a comma-separated list of key=values.

SchemaComma-delimited list of key=value pairs
Defaultnone

BPFLogLevel

AttributeValue
KeyBPFLogLevel
Description

Controls the log level of the BPF programs when in BPF dataplane mode. One of "Off", "Info", or "Debug". The logs are emitted to the BPF trace pipe, accessible with the command tc exec bpf debug. .

SchemaOne of: debug, info, off (case insensitive)
Defaultoff

BPFMapSizeConntrack

AttributeValue
KeyBPFMapSizeConntrack
Description

Sets the size for the conntrack map. This map must be large enough to hold an entry for each active connection. Warning: changing the size of the conntrack map can cause disruption.

SchemaInteger
Default512000

BPFMapSizeIPSets

AttributeValue
KeyBPFMapSizeIPSets
Description

Sets the size for ipsets map. The IP sets map must be large enough to hold an entry for each endpoint matched by every selector in the source/destination matches in network policy. Selectors such as "all()" can result in large numbers of entries (one entry per endpoint in that case).

SchemaInteger
Default1048576

BPFMapSizeIfState

AttributeValue
KeyBPFMapSizeIfState
Description

Sets the size for ifstate map. The ifstate map must be large enough to hold an entry for each device (host + workloads) on a host.

SchemaInteger
Default1000

BPFMapSizeNATAffinity

AttributeValue
KeyBPFMapSizeNATAffinity
Description

Sets the size of the BPF map that stores the affinity of a connection (for services that enable that feature.

SchemaInteger
Default65536

BPFMapSizeNATBackend

AttributeValue
KeyBPFMapSizeNATBackend
Description

Sets the size for NAT back end map. This is the total number of endpoints. This is mostly more than the size of the number of services.

SchemaInteger
Default262144

BPFMapSizeNATFrontend

AttributeValue
KeyBPFMapSizeNATFrontend
Description

Sets the size for NAT front end map. FrontendMap should be large enough to hold an entry for each nodeport, external IP and each port in each service.

SchemaInteger
Default65536

BPFMapSizeRoute

AttributeValue
KeyBPFMapSizeRoute
Description

Sets the size for the routes map. The routes map should be large enough to hold one entry per workload and a handful of entries per host (enough to cover its own IPs and tunnel IPs).

SchemaInteger
Default262144

BPFPSNATPorts

AttributeValue
KeyBPFPSNATPorts
Description

Sets the range from which we randomly pick a port if there is a source port collision. This should be within the ephemeral range as defined by RFC 6056 (1024–65535) and preferably outside the ephemeral ranges used by common operating systems. Linux uses 32768–60999, while others mostly use the IANA defined range 49152–65535. It is not necessarily a problem if this range overlaps with the operating systems. Both ends of the range are inclusive.

SchemaPort range: either a single number in [0,65535] or a range of numbers n:m
Default20000:29999

BPFPolicyDebugEnabled

AttributeValue
KeyBPFPolicyDebugEnabled
Description

When true, Felix records detailed information about the BPF policy programs, which can be examined with the calico-bpf command-line tool.

SchemaBoolean: true, 1, yes, y, t accepted as True; false, 0, no, n, f accepted (case insensitively) as False.
Defaulttrue

BPFRedirectToPeer

AttributeValue
KeyBPFRedirectToPeer
Description

Controls which whether it is allowed to forward straight to the peer side of the workload devices. It is allowed for any host L2 devices by default (L2Only), but it breaks TCP dump on the host side of workload device as it bypasses it on ingress. Value of Enabled also allows redirection from L3 host devices like IPIP tunnel or Wireguard directly to the peer side of the workload's device. This makes redirection faster, however, it breaks tools like tcpdump on the peer side. Use Enabled with caution.

SchemaOne of: Disabled, Enabled, L2Only (case insensitive)
DefaultL2Only

Dataplane: Windows

WindowsManageFirewallRules

AttributeValue
KeyWindowsManageFirewallRules
Description

Configures whether or not Felix will program Windows Firewall rules (to allow inbound access to its own metrics ports).

SchemaOne of: Disabled, Enabled (case insensitive)
DefaultDisabled

Dataplane: OpenStack support

EndpointReportingDelaySecs

AttributeValue
KeyEndpointReportingDelaySecs
Description

The delay before Felix reports endpoint status to the datastore. This is only used by the OpenStack integration.

SchemaSeconds (floating point)
Default1 (1s)

EndpointReportingEnabled

AttributeValue
KeyEndpointReportingEnabled
Description

Controls whether Felix reports endpoint status to the datastore. This is only used by the OpenStack integration.

SchemaBoolean: true, 1, yes, y, t accepted as True; false, 0, no, n, f accepted (case insensitively) as False.
Defaultfalse

MetadataAddr

AttributeValue
KeyMetadataAddr
Description

The IP address or domain name of the server that can answer VM queries for cloud-init metadata. In OpenStack, this corresponds to the machine running nova-api (or in Ubuntu, nova-api-metadata). A value of none (case-insensitive) means that Felix should not set up any NAT rule for the metadata path.

SchemaString matching regex ^[a-zA-Z0-9_.-]+$
Default127.0.0.1

MetadataPort

AttributeValue
KeyMetadataPort
Description

The port of the metadata server. This, combined with global.MetadataAddr (if not 'None'), is used to set up a NAT rule, from 169.254.169.254:80 to MetadataAddr:MetadataPort. In most cases this should not need to be changed .

SchemaInteger: [0,65535]
Default8775

OpenstackRegion

AttributeValue
KeyOpenstackRegion
Description

The name of the region that a particular Felix belongs to. In a multi-region Calico/OpenStack deployment, this must be configured somehow for each Felix (here in the datamodel, or in felix.cfg or the environment on each compute node), and must match the [calico] openstack_region value configured in neutron.conf on each node.

SchemaOpenStack region name (must be a valid DNS label)
Defaultnone

ReportingIntervalSecs

AttributeValue
KeyReportingIntervalSecs
Description

The interval at which Felix reports its status into the datastore or 0 to disable. Must be non-zero in OpenStack deployments.

SchemaSeconds (floating point)
Default30 (30s)

ReportingTTLSecs

AttributeValue
KeyReportingTTLSecs
Description

The time-to-live setting for process-wide status reports.

SchemaSeconds (floating point)
Default90 (1m30s)

Dataplane: XDP acceleration for iptables dataplane

GenericXDPEnabled

AttributeValue
KeyGenericXDPEnabled
Description

Enables Generic XDP so network cards that don't support XDP offload or driver modes can use XDP. This is not recommended since it doesn't provide better performance than iptables.

SchemaBoolean: true, 1, yes, y, t accepted as True; false, 0, no, n, f accepted (case insensitively) as False.
Defaultfalse

XDPEnabled

AttributeValue
KeyXDPEnabled
Description

Enables XDP acceleration for suitable untracked incoming deny rules.

SchemaBoolean: true, 1, yes, y, t accepted as True; false, 0, no, n, f accepted (case insensitively) as False.
Defaulttrue

XDPRefreshInterval

AttributeValue
KeyXDPRefreshInterval
Description

The period at which Felix re-checks all XDP state to ensure that no other process has accidentally broken Calico's BPF maps or attached programs. Set to 0 to disable XDP refresh.

SchemaSeconds (floating point)
Default90 (1m30s)

Overlay: VXLAN overlay

VXLANEnabled

AttributeValue
KeyVXLANEnabled
Description

Overrides whether Felix should create the VXLAN tunnel device for IPv4 VXLAN networking. Optional as Felix determines this based on the existing IP pools.

SchemaBoolean: true, 1, yes, y, t accepted as True; false, 0, no, n, f accepted (case insensitively) as False.
Defaultnone

VXLANMTU

AttributeValue
KeyVXLANMTU
Description

The MTU to set on the IPv4 VXLAN tunnel device. Optional as Felix auto-detects the MTU based on the MTU of the host's interfaces.

SchemaInteger
Default0

VXLANMTUV6

AttributeValue
KeyVXLANMTUV6
Description

The MTU to set on the IPv6 VXLAN tunnel device. Optional as Felix auto-detects the MTU based on the MTU of the host's interfaces.

SchemaInteger
Default0

VXLANPort

AttributeValue
KeyVXLANPort
Description

The UDP port number to use for VXLAN traffic.

SchemaInteger
Default4789

VXLANVNI

AttributeValue
KeyVXLANVNI
Description

The VXLAN VNI to use for VXLAN traffic. You may need to change this if the default value is in use on your system.

SchemaInteger
Default4096

Overlay: IP-in-IP

IpInIpEnabled

AttributeValue
KeyIpInIpEnabled
Description

Overrides whether Felix should configure an IPIP interface on the host. Optional as Felix determines this based on the existing IP pools.

SchemaBoolean: true, 1, yes, y, t accepted as True; false, 0, no, n, f accepted (case insensitively) as False.
Defaultnone

IpInIpMtu

AttributeValue
KeyIpInIpMtu
Description

Controls the MTU to set on the IPIP tunnel device. Optional as Felix auto-detects the MTU based on the MTU of the host's interfaces.

SchemaInteger
Default0

Overlay: Wireguard

WireguardEnabled

AttributeValue
KeyWireguardEnabled
Description

Controls whether Wireguard is enabled for IPv4 (encapsulating IPv4 traffic over an IPv4 underlay network).

SchemaBoolean: true, 1, yes, y, t accepted as True; false, 0, no, n, f accepted (case insensitively) as False.
Defaultfalse

WireguardEnabledV6

AttributeValue
KeyWireguardEnabledV6
Description

Controls whether Wireguard is enabled for IPv6 (encapsulating IPv6 traffic over an IPv6 underlay network).

SchemaBoolean: true, 1, yes, y, t accepted as True; false, 0, no, n, f accepted (case insensitively) as False.
Defaultfalse

WireguardHostEncryptionEnabled

AttributeValue
KeyWireguardHostEncryptionEnabled
Description

Controls whether Wireguard host-to-host encryption is enabled.

SchemaBoolean: true, 1, yes, y, t accepted as True; false, 0, no, n, f accepted (case insensitively) as False.
Defaultfalse

WireguardInterfaceName

AttributeValue
KeyWireguardInterfaceName
Description

Specifies the name to use for the IPv4 Wireguard interface.

SchemaString matching regex ^[a-zA-Z0-9:._+-]{1,15}$
Defaultwireguard.cali

WireguardInterfaceNameV6

AttributeValue
KeyWireguardInterfaceNameV6
Description

Specifies the name to use for the IPv6 Wireguard interface.

SchemaString matching regex ^[a-zA-Z0-9:._+-]{1,15}$
Defaultwg-v6.cali

WireguardListeningPort

AttributeValue
KeyWireguardListeningPort
Description

Controls the listening port used by IPv4 Wireguard.

SchemaInteger
Default51820

WireguardListeningPortV6

AttributeValue
KeyWireguardListeningPortV6
Description

Controls the listening port used by IPv6 Wireguard.

SchemaInteger
Default51821

WireguardMTU

AttributeValue
KeyWireguardMTU
Description

Controls the MTU on the IPv4 Wireguard interface. See Configuring MTU.

SchemaInteger
Default0

WireguardMTUV6

AttributeValue
KeyWireguardMTUV6
Description

Controls the MTU on the IPv6 Wireguard interface. See Configuring MTU.

SchemaInteger
Default0

WireguardPersistentKeepAlive

AttributeValue
KeyWireguardPersistentKeepAlive
Description

Controls Wireguard PersistentKeepalive option. Set 0 to disable.

SchemaSeconds (floating point)
Default0 (0s)

WireguardRoutingRulePriority

AttributeValue
KeyWireguardRoutingRulePriority
Description

Controls the priority value to use for the Wireguard routing rule.

SchemaInteger
Default99

AWS integration

AWSSrcDstCheck

AttributeValue
KeyAWSSrcDstCheck
Description

Controls whether Felix will try to change the "source/dest check" setting on the EC2 instance on which it is running. A value of "Disable" will try to disable the source/dest check. Disabling the check allows for sending workload traffic without encapsulation within the same AWS subnet.

SchemaOne of: Disable, DoNothing, Enable (case insensitive)
DefaultDoNothing

Debug/test-only (generally unsupported)

DebugBPFCgroupV2

AttributeValue
KeyDebugBPFCgroupV2
Description

Controls the cgroup v2 path that we apply the connect-time load balancer to. Most distros are configured for cgroup v1, which prevents all but the root cgroup v2 from working so this is only useful for development right now.

SchemaString
Defaultnone

DebugBPFMapRepinEnabled

AttributeValue
KeyDebugBPFMapRepinEnabled
Description

Can be used to prevent Felix from repinning its BPF maps at startup. This is useful for testing with multiple Felix instances running on one host.

SchemaBoolean: true, 1, yes, y, t accepted as True; false, 0, no, n, f accepted (case insensitively) as False.
Defaultfalse

DebugCPUProfilePath

AttributeValue
KeyDebugCPUProfilePath
Description

Unsupported diagnostic setting, used when testing Felix. Not exposed in FelixConfiguration.

SchemaPath to file
Default/tmp/felix-cpu-<timestamp>.pprof

DebugDisableLogDropping

AttributeValue
KeyDebugDisableLogDropping
Description

Disables the dropping of log messages when the log buffer is full. This can significantly impact performance if log write-out is a bottleneck.

SchemaBoolean: true, 1, yes, y, t accepted as True; false, 0, no, n, f accepted (case insensitively) as False.
Defaultfalse

DebugHost

AttributeValue
KeyDebugHost
Description

The host IP or hostname to bind the debug port to. Only used if DebugPort is set.

SchemaString matching regex ^[a-zA-Z0-9:._+-]{1,64}$
Defaultlocalhost

DebugMemoryProfilePath

AttributeValue
KeyDebugMemoryProfilePath
Description

The path to write the memory profile to when triggered by signal.

SchemaPath to file
Defaultnone

DebugPanicAfter

AttributeValue
KeyDebugPanicAfter
Description

Unsupported diagnostic setting, used when testing Felix. Not exposed in FelixConfiguration.

SchemaSeconds (floating point)
Default0

DebugPort

AttributeValue
KeyDebugPort
Description

If set, enables Felix's debug HTTP port, which allows memory and CPU profiles to be retrieved. The debug port is not secure, it should not be exposed to the internet.

SchemaInteger: [0,65535]
Defaultnone

DebugSimulateCalcGraphHangAfter

AttributeValue
KeyDebugSimulateCalcGraphHangAfter
Description

Used to simulate a hang in the calculation graph after the specified duration. This is useful in tests of the watchdog system only!

SchemaSeconds (floating point)
Default0 (0s)

DebugSimulateDataRace

AttributeValue
KeyDebugSimulateDataRace
Description

Unsupported diagnostic setting, used when testing Felix. Not exposed in FelixConfiguration.

SchemaBoolean: true, 1, yes, y, t accepted as True; false, 0, no, n, f accepted (case insensitively) as False.
Defaultfalse

DebugSimulateDataplaneApplyDelay

AttributeValue
KeyDebugSimulateDataplaneApplyDelay
Description

Adds an artificial delay to every dataplane operation. This is useful for simulating a heavily loaded system for test purposes only.

SchemaSeconds (floating point)
Default0 (0s)

DebugSimulateDataplaneHangAfter

AttributeValue
KeyDebugSimulateDataplaneHangAfter
Description

Used to simulate a hang in the dataplane after the specified duration. This is useful in tests of the watchdog system only!

SchemaSeconds (floating point)
Default0 (0s)

Usage reporting

UsageReportingEnabled

AttributeValue
KeyUsageReportingEnabled
Description

Reports anonymous Calico version number and cluster size to projectcalico.org. Logs warnings returned by the usage server. For example, if a significant security vulnerability has been discovered in the version of Calico being used.

SchemaBoolean: true, 1, yes, y, t accepted as True; false, 0, no, n, f accepted (case insensitively) as False.
Defaulttrue

UsageReportingInitialDelaySecs

AttributeValue
KeyUsageReportingInitialDelaySecs
Description

Controls the minimum delay before Felix makes a report.

SchemaSeconds (floating point)
Default300 (5m0s)

UsageReportingIntervalSecs

AttributeValue
KeyUsageReportingIntervalSecs
Description

Controls the interval at which Felix makes reports.

SchemaSeconds (floating point)
Default86400 (24h0m0s)

Environment variables

The highest priority of configuration is that read from environment variables. To set a configuration parameter via an environment variable, set the environment variable formed by taking FELIX_ and appending the uppercase form of the variable name. For example, to set the etcd address, set the environment variable FELIX_ETCDADDR. Other examples include FELIX_ETCDSCHEME, FELIX_ETCDKEYFILE, FELIX_ETCDCERTFILE, FELIX_ETCDCAFILE, FELIX_FELIXHOSTNAME, FELIX_LOGFILEPATH and FELIX_METADATAADDR.

Configuration file

On startup, Felix reads an ini-style configuration file. The path to this file defaults to /etc/calico/felix.cfg but can be overridden using the -c or --config-file options on the command line. If the file exists, then it is read (ignoring section names) and all parameters are set from it.

In OpenStack, we recommend putting all configuration into configuration files, since the etcd database is transient (and may be recreated by the OpenStack plugin in certain error cases). However, in a Docker environment the use of environment variables or etcd is often more convenient.

Datastore

Felix also reads configuration parameters from the datastore. It supports a global setting and a per-host override.

  1. Get the current felixconfig settings.

    calicoctl get felixconfig default -o yaml --export > felix.yaml
  2. Modify logFilePath to your intended path, e.g. "/tmp/felix.log"

    vim felix.yaml
    tip

    For a global change set name to "default". For a node-specific change: set name to node.<nodename>, e.g. "node.Calico-node-1"

  3. Replace the current felixconfig settings

    calicoctl replace -f felix.yaml

For more information, see Felix Configuration Resource.