veth(4) Kernel Interfaces Manual veth(4)
NAME
veth - Virtual Ethernet Device
DESCRIPTION
The veth devices are virtual Ethernet devices. They can act as tunnels
between network namespaces to create a bridge to a physical network de-
vice in another namespace, but can also be used as standalone network
devices.
veth devices are always created in interconnected pairs. A pair can be
created using the command:
# ip link add <p1-name> type veth peer name <p2-name>
In the above, p1-name and p2-name are the names assigned to the two con-
nected end points.
Packets transmitted on one device in the pair are immediately received
on the other device. When either device is down, the link state of the
pair is down.
veth device pairs are useful for combining the network facilities of the
kernel together in interesting ways. A particularly interesting use
case is to place one end of a veth pair in one network namespace and the
other end in another network namespace, thus allowing communication be-
tween network namespaces. To do this, one can provide the netns parame-
ter when creating the interfaces:
# ip link add <p1-name> netns <p1-ns> type veth peer <p2-name> netns <p2-ns>
or, for an existing veth pair, move one side to the other namespace:
# ip link set <p2-name> netns <p2-ns>
ethtool(8) can be used to find the peer of a veth network interface, us-
ing commands something like:
# ip link add ve_A type veth peer name ve_B # Create veth pair
# ethtool -S ve_A # Discover interface index of peer
NIC statistics:
peer_ifindex: 16
# ip link | grep '^16:' # Look up interface
16: ve_B@ve_A: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,M-DOWN> mtu 1500 qdisc ...
SEE ALSO
clone(2), network_namespaces(7), ip(8), ip-link(8), ip-netns(8)
Linux man-pages 6.9.1 2024-05-02 veth(4)
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