This topic describes how to use the Terway network plugin in a Kubernetes cluster that runs on Alibaba Cloud Container Service.

Terway network plugin

Terway, a network plugin developed by Alibaba Cloud Container Service, is fully compatible with Flannel, and provides the following features:
  • Allocates Alibaba Cloud Elastic Network Interfaces (ENIs) to containers.
  • Defines the access policies for containers according to the Kubernetes Network Policy. This network plugin is also compatible with the Calico Network Policy.


If you install the Terway network plugin in a Kubernetes cluster, each pod then has its own network stack and an IP address. Packets between pods on one ECS instance are forwarded directly by the instance. Packets between pods on different ECS instances are forwarded through the VRouter of a VPC. The Terway network plugin delivers high communication performance because it does not use tunneling technologies such as VXLAN to encapsulate packets.

Use the Terway network plugin

  1. Log on to the Container Service console.
  2. In the left-side navigation pane under Kubernetes, click Clusters.
  3. In the upper-right corner, click Create Kubernetes Cluster.

    By default, the Create Kubernetes Cluster page is displayed.
    Note In this example, a dedicated Kubernetes cluster is created. For more information, see Create a Kubernetes cluster.


  4. Select the Terway network plugin.

Flannel and Terway

Alibaba Cloud Container Service for Kubernetes provides two types of network plugins for you to create a Kubernetes cluster: Terway and Flannel.
Note For how to select a network plugin, see Do I select the Terway or Flannel plug-in for my Kubernetes cluster network?
  • Flannel: a simple and stable community Flannel CNI plugin. Flannel can interoperate with the high-speed network of Alibaba Cloud VPC to provide a high-performance and stable container network for clusters. However, it provides a limited amount of features. For example, it does not support the Kubernetes Network Policy.
  • Terway: a network plugin developed by Alibaba Cloud Container service. It is fully compatible with Flannel, and can allocate Alibaba Cloud Elastic Network Interfaces (ENIs) to containers. It can also define the access policies between containers according to the Kubernetes Network Policy. In addition, you can use this network plugin to limit the bandwidth traffic of a single container. If you do not need to use the Network Policy, we recommend that you select Flannel. In other cases, we recommend that you select Terway.
    Note

    • Terway provides the same Network Policy as Calico because Terway is integrated with the Felix component of Calico. If you create a cluster to use Calico, you can use Terway to switch to Alibaba Cloud Container Service for Kubernetes.

    • Terway is integrated with the Felix component V2.6.6.