1. Documentation
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Secondary networks

You can configure the Network Observability Operator to collect and enrich network flow data from secondary networks, such as SR-IOV and OVN-Kubernetes.

Prerequisites

  • Access to an OKD cluster with an additional network interface, such as a secondary interface or an L2 network.

Configuring monitoring for SR-IOV interface traffic

Configure the FlowCollector resource to monitor traffic on Single Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV) device by setting the spec.agent.ebpf.privileged field to true, which enables the eBPF agent to monitor other network namespaces.

The eBPF agent monitors other network namespaces in addition to the host network namespaces, which are monitored by default. When a pod with a virtual functions (VF) interface is created, a new network namespace is created. With SRIOVNetwork policy IPAM configurations specified, the VF interface is migrated from the host network namespace to the pod network namespace.

Prerequisites

  • Access to an OKD cluster with a SR-IOV device.

  • The SRIOVNetwork custom resource (CR) spec.ipam configuration must be set with an IP address from the range that the interface lists or from other plugins.

Procedure

  1. In the web console, navigate to Ecosystem → Installed Operators.

  2. Under the Provided APIs heading for the NetObserv Operator, select Flow Collector.

  3. Select cluster and then select the YAML tab.

  4. Configure the FlowCollector custom resource. A sample configuration is as follows:

    Configure FlowCollector for SR-IOV monitoring
    apiVersion: flows.netobserv.io/v1beta2
kind: FlowCollector
metadata:
  name: cluster
spec:
  namespace: netobserv
  deploymentModel: Service
  agent:
    type: eBPF
    ebpf:
      privileged: true

    • The spec.agent.ebpf.privileged field value must be set to true to enable SR-IOV monitoring.

Additional resources

Configuring virtual machine (VM) secondary network interfaces for Network Observability

Configure the FlowCollector to monitor VM secondary network traffic by setting the eBPF agent to privileged mode and defining the indexing for secondary networks, enabling the capture and enrichment of flows from OKD Virtualization.

Network flows coming from VMs that are connected to the default internal pod network are automatically captured by network observability.

Procedure

  1. Get information about the virtual machine launcher pod by running the following command. This information is used in Step 5:

    $ oc get pod virt-launcher-<vm_name>-<suffix> -n <namespace> -o yaml
    apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  annotations:
    k8s.v1.cni.cncf.io/network-status: |-
      [{
        "name": "ovn-kubernetes",
        "interface": "eth0",
        "ips": [
          "10.129.2.39"
        ],
        "mac": "0a:58:0a:81:02:27",
        "default": true,
        "dns": {}
      },
      {
        "name": "my-vms/l2-network",
        "interface": "podc0f69e19ba2",
        "ips": [
          "10.10.10.15"
        ],
        "mac": "02:fb:f8:00:00:12",
        "dns": {}
      }]
  name: virt-launcher-fedora-aqua-fowl-13-zr2x9
  namespace: my-vms
spec:
#  ...
status:
#  ...

    where:

    name

    Specifies the name of the secondary network.

    interface

    Specifies the network interface of the secondary network.

    ips

    Specifies the list of IP addresses used by the secondary network.

    mac

    Specifies the MAC address used for the secondary network.

  2. In the web console, navigate to Ecosystem → Installed Operators.

  3. Under the Provided APIs heading for the NetObserv Operator, select Flow Collector.

  4. Select cluster and then select the YAML tab.

  5. Configure FlowCollector based on the information you found from the additional network investigation:

    apiVersion: flows.netobserv.io/v1beta2
kind: FlowCollector
metadata:
  name: cluster
spec:
  agent:
    ebpf:
      privileged: true
  processor:
    advanced:
      secondaryNetworks:
      - index:
        - MAC
        name: my-vms/l2-network
# ...

    where:

    spec.agent.ebpf.privileged

    Specifies that the eBPF agent runs in privileged mode, which is required to collect flows from secondary network interfaces on virtual machine launcher pods.

    spec.processor.advanced.secondaryNetworks.index

    Specifies the fields to use for indexing the virtual machine launcher pods. It is recommended to use the MAC address as the indexing field to get network flows enrichment for secondary interfaces. If you have overlapping MAC addresses between pods, then additional indexing fields, such as IP and Interface, can be added to ensure accurate enrichment.

    MAC

    Specifies the MAC address as an indexing field value. Add MAC to the index field list if your additional network information includes a MAC address.

    spec.processor.advanced.secondaryNetworks.name

    Specifies the name of the secondary network as found in the k8s.v1.cni.cncf.io/network-status annotation of the virtual machine launcher pod. The format is typically <namespace>/<network_attachment_definition_name>.

Verification

  1. Observe VM traffic:

    1. Navigate to the Network Traffic page.

    2. Filter by Source IP using your virtual machine IP found in k8s.v1.cni.cncf.io/network-status annotation.

    3. View both Source and Destination fields, which should be enriched, and identify the VM launcher pods and the VM instance as owners.