Chapter 15. Configuring interface-level network sysctls
In Linux, sysctl allows an administrator to modify kernel parameters at runtime. You can modify interface-level network sysctls using the tuning Container Network Interface (CNI) meta plugin. The tuning CNI meta plugin operates in a chain with a main CNI plugin as illustrated.

The main CNI plugin assigns the interface and passes this to the tuning CNI meta plugin at runtime. You can change some sysctls and several interface attributes (promiscuous mode, all-multicast mode, MTU, and MAC address) in the network namespace by using the tuning CNI meta plugin. In the tuning CNI meta plugin configuration, the interface name is represented by the IFNAME
token, and is replaced with the actual name of the interface at runtime.
In OpenShift Container Platform, the tuning CNI meta plugin only supports changing interface-level network sysctls.
15.1. Configuring the tuning CNI
The following procedure configures the tuning CNI to change the interface-level network net.ipv4.conf.IFNAME.accept_redirects
sysctl. This example enables accepting and sending ICMP-redirected packets.
Procedure
Create a network attachment definition, such as
tuning-example.yaml
, with the following content:apiVersion: "k8s.cni.cncf.io/v1" kind: NetworkAttachmentDefinition metadata: name: <name> namespace: default spec: config: '{ "cniVersion": "0.4.0", "name": "<name>", "plugins": [{ "type": "<main_CNI_plugin>" }, { "type": "tuning", "sysctl": { "net.ipv4.conf.IFNAME.accept_redirects": "1" } } ] }
apiVersion: "k8s.cni.cncf.io/v1" kind: NetworkAttachmentDefinition metadata: name: <name>
1 namespace: default
2 spec: config: '{ "cniVersion": "0.4.0",
3 "name": "<name>",
4 "plugins": [{ "type": "<main_CNI_plugin>"
5 }, { "type": "tuning",
6 "sysctl": { "net.ipv4.conf.IFNAME.accept_redirects": "1"
7 } } ] }
Copy to Clipboard Copied! - 1
- Specifies the name for the additional network attachment to create. The name must be unique within the specified namespace.
- 2
- Specifies the namespace that the object is associated with.
- 3
- Specifies the CNI specification version.
- 4
- Specifies the name for the configuration. It is recommended to match the configuration name to the name value of the network attachment definition.
- 5
- Specifies the name of the main CNI plugin to configure.
- 6
- Specifies the name of the CNI meta plugin.
- 7
- Specifies the sysctl to set.
An example yaml file is shown here:
apiVersion: "k8s.cni.cncf.io/v1" kind: NetworkAttachmentDefinition metadata: name: tuningnad namespace: default spec: config: '{ "cniVersion": "0.4.0", "name": "tuningnad", "plugins": [{ "type": "bridge" }, { "type": "tuning", "sysctl": { "net.ipv4.conf.IFNAME.accept_redirects": "1" } } ] }'
apiVersion: "k8s.cni.cncf.io/v1" kind: NetworkAttachmentDefinition metadata: name: tuningnad namespace: default spec: config: '{ "cniVersion": "0.4.0", "name": "tuningnad", "plugins": [{ "type": "bridge" }, { "type": "tuning", "sysctl": { "net.ipv4.conf.IFNAME.accept_redirects": "1" } } ] }'
Copy to Clipboard Copied! Apply the yaml by running the following command:
oc apply -f tuning-example.yaml
$ oc apply -f tuning-example.yaml
Copy to Clipboard Copied! Example output
networkattachmentdefinition.k8.cni.cncf.io/tuningnad created
networkattachmentdefinition.k8.cni.cncf.io/tuningnad created
Copy to Clipboard Copied! Create a pod such as
examplepod.yaml
with the network attachment definition similar to the following:apiVersion: v1 kind: Pod metadata: name: tunepod namespace: default annotations: k8s.v1.cni.cncf.io/networks: tuningnad spec: containers: - name: podexample image: centos command: ["/bin/bash", "-c", "sleep INF"] securityContext: runAsUser: 2000 runAsGroup: 3000 allowPrivilegeEscalation: false capabilities: drop: ["ALL"] securityContext: runAsNonRoot: true seccompProfile: type: RuntimeDefault
apiVersion: v1 kind: Pod metadata: name: tunepod namespace: default annotations: k8s.v1.cni.cncf.io/networks: tuningnad
1 spec: containers: - name: podexample image: centos command: ["/bin/bash", "-c", "sleep INF"] securityContext: runAsUser: 2000
2 runAsGroup: 3000
3 allowPrivilegeEscalation: false
4 capabilities:
5 drop: ["ALL"] securityContext: runAsNonRoot: true
6 seccompProfile:
7 type: RuntimeDefault
Copy to Clipboard Copied! - 1
- Specify the name of the configured
NetworkAttachmentDefinition
. - 2
runAsUser
controls which user ID the container is run with.- 3
runAsGroup
controls which primary group ID the containers is run with.- 4
allowPrivilegeEscalation
determines if a pod can request to allow privilege escalation. If unspecified, it defaults to true. This boolean directly controls whether theno_new_privs
flag gets set on the container process.- 5
capabilities
permit privileged actions without giving full root access. This policy ensures all capabilities are dropped from the pod.- 6
runAsNonRoot: true
requires that the container will run with a user with any UID other than 0.- 7
RuntimeDefault
enables the default seccomp profile for a pod or container workload.
Apply the yaml by running the following command:
oc apply -f examplepod.yaml
$ oc apply -f examplepod.yaml
Copy to Clipboard Copied! Verify that the pod is created by running the following command:
oc get pod
$ oc get pod
Copy to Clipboard Copied! Example output
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE tunepod 1/1 Running 0 47s
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE tunepod 1/1 Running 0 47s
Copy to Clipboard Copied! Log in to the pod by running the following command:
oc rsh tunepod
$ oc rsh tunepod
Copy to Clipboard Copied! Verify the values of the configured sysctl flags. For example, find the value
net.ipv4.conf.net1.accept_redirects
by running the following command:sysctl net.ipv4.conf.net1.accept_redirects
sh-4.4# sysctl net.ipv4.conf.net1.accept_redirects
Copy to Clipboard Copied! Expected output
net.ipv4.conf.net1.accept_redirects = 1
net.ipv4.conf.net1.accept_redirects = 1
Copy to Clipboard Copied!