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Container Networking: Bridges, Overlays & CNI

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From Linux primitives to Kubernetes networking

Container networking is built from Linux kernel primitives: network namespaces (isolation), veth pairs (virtual cables), Linux bridges (L2 switching), and iptables/nftables (NAT and filtering).

Docker composes these manually. Kubernetes delegates to CNI plugins (Calico, Cilium, Flannel) that handle multi-host connectivity with different tradeoffs — overlay encapsulation vs native BGP routing.

Packets in motion — click to inspect:

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