CNIrajapinnan

CNIrajapinta refers to the Container Network Interface (CNI) specification, a standard for configuring network interfaces in Linux containers. The interface is designed to be simple, extensible, and agnostic to the underlying networking implementation. It supports a wide variety of networking plugins, allowing container runtimes and orchestrators to connect just about any networking technology to the containers they run.

The CNI specification defines a set of JSON objects that describe network configuration options such as IP addresses, host routes, and additional plugin information. Each plugin implements a small executable that follows a defined set of actions: ADD, DEL, and CHECK. When a container is created, the runtime calls the ADD action to allocate network resources; when the container is removed, the DEL action releases those resources. The CHECK command lets runtimes verify the integrity of an existing network configuration.

A typical deployment includes a plugin binary, a configuration file in JSON format, and optional kernel modules that support networking features such as IPv6, networking namespaces, or encapsulation. The most popular CNI plugins include bridge, host-local, macvlan, and flannel. Kubernetes uses CNI to support pod networking; it delegates network management to the chosen plugin, making it possible to plug in alternative networking solutions without changing the orchestrator’s core design.

The simplicity of CNIrajapinta has led to wide adoption beyond Kubernetes, with projects such as Docker and cri-o also supporting the interface. Its modular design encourages experimentation, leading to an ecosystem of community-maintained plugins that provide advanced features like service mesh integration, network segmentation, and traffic encryption.