HP-UX Containers (SRP) A.03.01 Administrator's Guide

12 Networking with containers

All container types require an IP address to allow network interaction with remote systems. All

network activity between a container and other network endpoints will use the IP address dedicated to

the container. Once you have assigned an IP address to a container, the IP address can only be used

while the container is started. When the container is stopped, the IP address is unavailable.

When you run applications and services in a container that perform network interface and endpoint

queries, the container reports only interfaces and endpoints that are associated with the container.

For example, running netstat –i or netstat –r generates output that is context relevant for the

container in which you run the command.

You can use the srp command to perform basic network administration of a container, such as

assign an IP address to a container, and unconfigure a container’s IP address when the container is

deleted. The srp command automatically configures the IP address up and down when the container

is started and stopped.

For each container, when you assign an IP address, you can also configure a default route entry. The

srp command activates the container route entries along with the IP address whenever the container

is started, and removes the route entries when the container is stopped. You can manually configure

additional route entries for the container.

An additional routing feature available to HP-UX Containers is the ability to designate routes between

containers on the system server as Force-to-Wire routes. Force-to-Wire route entries cause all network

traffic passing between two different IP addresses on the same server to be forced down through the

physical network layer. Then go onto the network where the packets will traverse through any

firewalls and routers before being delivered back to the server through the interface where the target

container IP address is assigned. You can use this feature to ensure that remotely implemented

firewall policy and network auditing is applied to all container network traffic.

Network administration is only supported from the global view.

12.1 Configuring the first network interface

When you run the srp –add command to create a container, you must specify an IP address for the

container. You will be prompted to enter the necessary information. The parameters that you must

specify to configure the primary network interface for a container include:

ip_address

An IPv4 or IPv6 formatted address

ip_mask

(IPv4 only) A mask of the form 255.255.255.0

iface

Physical interface name of the form lan0 or lan0:2

gw_ip_address

Gateway IP address for the default route entry

The IP address that you specify must not already be configured in the

/etc/rc.config.d/netconf[-ipv6] file, or the srp command will prompt you to correct your

entry. The ip_mask parameter only supports IPv4 addresses.

If an IPv6 address is specified, a default prefix length (64) will be used when the interface is

configured. You can manually edit the /etc/rc.config.d/netconf-ipv6 file entry to include

the nonstandard IPV6_PREFIXLEN as needed once the entry is created.