Kubernetes Networking Observations with Kindnet

This repository accompanies the Medium article series on Kubernetes pod-to-pod networking internals using Kindnet CNI in a Minikube cluster. Each article explores how Kubernetes routes traffic within and across nodes in a Kindnet setup—without bridges, overlays, or tunnels.

📚 Read the full blog series on Medium:

1. Inside a Pod’s Birth in Kubernetes: Veth Pairs, IPAM, and Routing with Kindnet CNI
2. Inside Intra-Node Pod Traffic in Kubernetes: How Kindnet with PTP Moves Packets
3. Inter-Node Pod Traffic with Kindnet: The No-Overlay Walkthrough
4. How Kindnet NATs Outbound Pod Traffic Without Breaking Intra-Cluster Visibility

Or Free on my personal blog:

📚 Read the full blog series on Medium:

1. Inside a Pod’s Birth in Kubernetes: Veth Pairs, IPAM, and Routing with Kindnet CNI
2. Inside Intra-Node Pod Traffic in Kubernetes: How Kindnet with PTP Moves Packets
3. Inter-Node Pod Traffic with Kindnet: The No-Overlay Walkthrough
4. How Kindnet NATs Outbound Pod Traffic Without Breaking Intra-Cluster Visibility

Repository Structure

This repo provides manifests used to validate L3 routing behavior in Kindnet with both single-node and multi-node Minikube setups.

• manifests/tshark.yaml: Deploys debug pods for inspecting intra-node communication using tshark and iproute2 inside a single-node Minikube cluster.
• manifests/tshark-multi-node.yaml: Targets a two-node Minikube cluster to capture and trace inter-node traffic between pods scheduled on different nodes.

Get Started

# Single-node setup
kubectl apply -f manifests/tshark.yaml

# Multi-node (two-node Minikube) setup
kubectl apply -f manifests/tshark-multi-node.yaml