github.com/cilium/cilium@v1.16.2/Documentation/network/ebpf/lifeofapacket.rst (about) 1 .. only:: not (epub or latex or html) 2 3 WARNING: You are looking at unreleased Cilium documentation. 4 Please use the official rendered version released here: 5 https://docs.cilium.io 6 7 ################ 8 Life of a Packet 9 ################ 10 11 This documentation page overviews the life of a packet from an eBPF datapath perspective 12 by explaining three different scenarios. 13 14 .. admonition:: Video 15 :class: attention 16 17 You can also watch a video explanation of this topic that also explores the tools available within Cilium to help 18 you understand the life of a packet in `eCHO Episode 51: Life of a Packet with Cilium <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BKU6avwS98&t=494s>`__. 19 20 Endpoint to Endpoint 21 ==================== 22 23 First we show the local endpoint to endpoint flow with optional L7 Policy on 24 egress and ingress. Followed by the same endpoint to endpoint flow with 25 socket layer enforcement enabled. With socket layer enforcement enabled for TCP 26 traffic the 27 handshake initiating the connection will traverse the endpoint policy object until TCP state 28 is ESTABLISHED. Then after the connection is ESTABLISHED only the L7 Policy 29 object is still required. 30 31 .. image:: _static/cilium_bpf_endpoint.svg 32 33 Egress from Endpoint 34 ==================== 35 36 Next we show local endpoint to egress with optional overlay network. In the 37 optional overlay network traffic is forwarded out the Linux network interface 38 corresponding to the overlay. In the default case the overlay interface is 39 named cilium_vxlan. Similar to above, when socket layer enforcement is enabled 40 and a L7 proxy is in use we can avoid running the endpoint policy block between 41 the endpoint and the L7 Policy for TCP traffic. An optional L3 encryption block 42 will encrypt the packet if enabled. 43 44 .. image:: _static/cilium_bpf_egress.svg 45 46 Ingress to Endpoint 47 =================== 48 49 Finally we show ingress to local endpoint also with optional overlay network. 50 Similar to above socket layer enforcement can be used to avoid a set of 51 policy traversals between the proxy and the endpoint socket. If the packet 52 is encrypted upon receive it is first decrypted and then handled through 53 the normal flow. 54 55 .. image:: _static/cilium_bpf_ingress.svg 56 57 This completes the datapath overview. More BPF specifics can be found in the 58 :ref:`bpf_guide`. Additional details on how to extend the L7 Policy 59 exist in the :ref:`envoy` section.