1veth(4)                    Linux Programmer's Manual                   veth(4)
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NAME

6       veth - Virtual Ethernet Device
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DESCRIPTION

9       The veth devices are virtual Ethernet devices.  They can act as tunnels
10       between network namespaces to create a bridge  to  a  physical  network
11       device in another namespace, but can also be used as standalone network
12       devices.
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14       veth devices are always created in interconnected pairs.  A pair can be
15       created using the command:
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17           # ip link add <p1-name> type veth peer name <p2-name>
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19       In  the  above,  p1-name  and p2-name are the names assigned to the two
20       connected end points.
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22       Packets transmitted on one device in the pair are immediately  received
23       on the other device.  When either devices is down the link state of the
24       pair is down.
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26       veth device pairs are useful for combining the  network  facilities  of
27       the  kernel  together  in interesting ways.  A particularly interesting
28       use case is to place one end of a veth pair in  one  network  namespace
29       and  the other end in another network namespace, thus allowing communi‐
30       cation between network namespaces.  To do this, one first  creates  the
31       veth  device  as above and then moves one side of the pair to the other
32       namespace:
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34           # ip link set <p2-name> netns <p2-namespace>
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36       ethtool(8) can be used to find the peer of a  veth  network  interface,
37       using commands something like:
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39           # ip link add ve_A type veth peer name ve_B   # Create veth pair
40           # ethtool -S ve_A         # Discover interface index of peer
41           NIC statistics:
42                peer_ifindex: 16
43           # ip link | grep '^16:'   # Look up interface
44           16: ve_B@ve_A: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,M-DOWN> mtu 1500 qdisc ...
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SEE ALSO

47       clone(2), network_namespaces(7), ip(8), ip-link(8), ip-netns(8)
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COLOPHON

50       This  page  is  part of release 4.16 of the Linux man-pages project.  A
51       description of the project, information about reporting bugs,  and  the
52       latest     version     of     this    page,    can    be    found    at
53       https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.
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57Linux                             2018-02-02                           veth(4)
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