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NETWORK_NAMESPACES(7)                 Linux Programmer's Manual                NETWORK_NAMESPACES(7)



NAME
       network_namespaces - overview of Linux network namespaces

DESCRIPTION
       Network namespaces provide isolation of the system resources associated with networking: net‐
       work devices, IPv4 and IPv6 protocol stacks, IP routing tables, firewall rules, the /proc/net
       directory  (which is a symbolic link to /proc/PID/net), the /sys/class/net directory, various
       files under /proc/sys/net, port numbers (sockets), and so on.   In  addition,  network  name‐
       spaces isolate the UNIX domain abstract socket namespace (see unix(7)).

       A  physical  network  device can live in exactly one network namespace.  When a network name‐
       space is freed (i.e., when the last process in the namespace terminates), its  physical  net‐
       work  devices  are  moved  back  to  the  initial network namespace (not to the parent of the
       process).

       A virtual network (veth(4)) device pair provides a pipe-like abstraction that can be used  to
       create  tunnels  between network namespaces, and can be used to create a bridge to a physical
       network device in another namespace.  When a namespace is freed, the veth(4) devices that  it
       contains are destroyed.

       Use of network namespaces requires a kernel that is configured with the CONFIG_NET_NS option.

SEE ALSO
       nsenter(1),  unshare(1),  clone(2),  veth(4),  proc(5),  sysfs(5),  namespaces(7), user_name‐‐
       spaces(7), brctl(8), ip(8), ip-address(8), ip-link(8), ip-netns(8), iptables(8), ovs-vsctl(8)

COLOPHON
       This page is part of release 5.10 of the Linux  man-pages  project.   A  description  of  the
       project,  information about reporting bugs, and the latest version of this page, can be found
       at https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.



Linux                                        2020-06-09                        NETWORK_NAMESPACES(7)