Kubernetes Networking in Practice: A Complete Guide to CNI Plugins, Services, Ingress, Network Policies, and Cilium for DevOps Engineers
Your pods are running. Your application is deployed. So why is the traffic failing?
A Service works from one namespace but not another. An Ingress returns cryptic errors. A NetworkPolicy blocks legitimate traffic. Pods communicate on one node but fail across another.
When Kubernetes networking breaks, knowing more kubectl commands isn't always enough. You need to understand what actually happens to network traffic inside the cluster.
Kubernetes Networking in Practice takes you beneath the configuration layer and into the networking architecture that makes Kubernetes applications communicate.
From Container Network Interface (CNI) fundamentals to advanced Cilium and eBPF, this guide helps you understand, configure, secure, and troubleshoot Kubernetes networking with practical, production-focused knowledge.
Inside the book, you'll learn how to:
Understand Kubernetes networking - Explore the network model, pod-to-pod communication, cross-node networking, CNI architecture, and scalable network design.
Work with CNI plugins - Understand Flannel, Calico, Weave, and Cilium and the considerations involved in choosing a networking solution.
Configure Kubernetes Services - Master ClusterIP, NodePort, LoadBalancer, and ExternalName, plus kube-proxy behavior and Kubernetes DNS.
Build production-ready Ingress - Configure NGINX and Traefik for TLS termination, host-based routing, path-based routing, and advanced configuration.
Implement NetworkPolicies - Create ingress and egress rules, isolate namespaces, use pod selectors, and apply practical network segmentation and zero-trust patterns.
Explore Cilium and eBPF - Learn identity-based security, Layer 7 visibility, Hubble observability, transparent encryption, and cluster connectivity.
Troubleshoot networking failures - Use structured diagnostic methods, CLI tools, packet capture, and observability techniques to identify connectivity and policy problems.
Go Beyond kubectl
Kubernetes networking becomes complicated when you need to determine why a packet isn't reaching its destination.
This book connects pods, nodes, CNI plugins, Services, DNS, kube-proxy, Ingress, NetworkPolicies, and eBPF-based networking into a practical mental model. Instead of memorizing isolated commands, you'll learn to reason about how traffic moves through a Kubernetes environment and troubleshoot when reality doesn't match your configuration.
Who This Book Is For
Designed for:
DevOps engineers managing Kubernetes clusters
Platform engineers building internal developer platforms
Site reliability engineers troubleshooting connectivity and policy failures
Cloud architects evaluating networking strategies
Kubernetes professionals seeking deeper networking expertise
Familiarity with Kubernetes fundamentals, Linux, and command-line tools is helpful.
Whether you're troubleshooting a broken Service, designing NetworkPolicies, evaluating CNI options, configuring Ingress, or exploring Cilium and eBPF, this guide gives you the practical foundation to understand what's happening beneath the surface.
Understand the network. Secure the traffic. Troubleshoot with confidence. Build Kubernetes environments that work in the real world.
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