Provided by: docker.io_28.2.2-0ubuntu1~24.04.1_amd64 
NAME
docker-network-create - Create a network
SYNOPSIS
docker network create [OPTIONS] NETWORK
DESCRIPTION
Creates a new network. The DRIVER accepts bridge or overlay which are the built-in network drivers. If
you have installed a third party or your own custom network driver you can specify that DRIVER here also.
If you don't specify the --driver option, the command automatically creates a bridge network for you.
When you install Docker Engine it creates a bridge network automatically. This network corresponds to the
docker0 bridge that Engine has traditionally relied on. When you launch a new container with docker run
it automatically connects to this bridge network. You cannot remove this default bridge network, but you
can create new ones using the network create command.
$ docker network create -d bridge my-bridge-network
Bridge networks are isolated networks on a single Engine installation. If you want to create a network
that spans multiple Docker hosts each running an Engine, you must enable Swarm mode, and create an
overlay network. To read more about overlay networks with Swarm mode, see "
⟨https://docs.docker.com/network/overlay/⟩.
Once you have enabled swarm mode, you can create a swarm-scoped overlay network:
$ docker network create --scope=swarm --attachable -d overlay my-multihost-network
By default, swarm-scoped networks do not allow manually started containers to be attached. This
restriction is added to prevent someone that has access to a non-manager node in the swarm cluster from
running a container that is able to access the network stack of a swarm service.
The --attachable option used in the example above disables this restriction, and allows for both swarm
services and manually started containers to attach to the overlay network.
Network names must be unique. The Docker daemon attempts to identify naming conflicts but this is not
guaranteed. It is the user's responsibility to avoid name conflicts.
Overlay network limitations
You should create overlay networks with /24 blocks (the default), which limits you to 256 IP addresses,
when you create networks using the default VIP-based endpoint-mode. This recommendation addresses
limitations with swarm mode ⟨https://github.com/moby/moby/issues/30820⟩. If you need more than 256 IP
addresses, do not increase the IP block size. You can either use dnsrr endpoint mode with an external
load balancer, or use multiple smaller overlay networks. See Configure service discovery
⟨https://docs.docker.com/engine/swarm/networking/#configure-service-discovery⟩ for more information about
different endpoint modes.
Connect containers
When you start a container, use the --network flag to connect it to a network. This example adds the
busybox container to the mynet network:
$ docker run -itd --network=mynet busybox
If you want to add a container to a network after the container is already running, use the docker
network connect subcommand.
You can connect multiple containers to the same network. Once connected, the containers can communicate
using only another container's IP address or name. For overlay networks or custom plugins that support
multi-host connectivity, containers connected to the same multi-host network but launched from different
Engines can also communicate in this way.
You can disconnect a container from a network using the docker network disconnect command.
Specify advanced options
When you create a network, Engine creates a non-overlapping subnetwork for the network by default. This
subnetwork is not a subdivision of an existing network. It is purely for ip-addressing purposes. You can
override this default and specify subnetwork values directly using the --subnet option. On a bridge
network you can only create a single subnet:
$ docker network create --driver=bridge --subnet=192.168.0.0/16 br0
Additionally, you also specify the --gateway --ip-range and --aux-address options.
$ docker network create \
--driver=bridge \
--subnet=172.28.0.0/16 \
--ip-range=172.28.5.0/24 \
--gateway=172.28.5.254 \
br0
If you omit the --gateway flag the Engine selects one for you from inside a preferred pool. For overlay
networks and for network driver plugins that support it you can create multiple subnetworks. This example
uses two /25 subnet mask to adhere to the current guidance of not having more than 256 IPs in a single
overlay network. Each of the subnetworks has 126 usable addresses.
$ docker network create -d overlay \
--subnet=192.168.10.0/25 \
--subnet=192.168.20.0/25 \
--gateway=192.168.10.100 \
--gateway=192.168.20.100 \
--aux-address="my-router=192.168.10.5" --aux-address="my-switch=192.168.10.6" \
--aux-address="my-printer=192.168.20.5" --aux-address="my-nas=192.168.20.6" \
my-multihost-network
Be sure that your subnetworks do not overlap. If they do, the network create fails and Engine returns an
error.
Bridge driver options
When creating a custom network, the default network driver (i.e. bridge) has additional options that can
be passed. The following are those options and the equivalent docker daemon flags used for docker0
bridge:
┌────────────────────────────────────────────────┬────────────┬────────────────────────────────┐
│ Option │ Equivalent │ Description │
├────────────────────────────────────────────────┼────────────┼────────────────────────────────┤
│ com.docker.network.bridge.name │ - │ Bridge name to be used when │
│ │ │ creating the Linux bridge │
├────────────────────────────────────────────────┼────────────┼────────────────────────────────┤
│ com.docker.network.bridge.enable_ip_masquerade │ --ip-masq │ Enable IP masquerading │
├────────────────────────────────────────────────┼────────────┼────────────────────────────────┤
│ com.docker.network.bridge.enable_icc │ --icc │ Enable or Disable Inter │
│ │ │ Container Connectivity │
├────────────────────────────────────────────────┼────────────┼────────────────────────────────┤
│ com.docker.network.bridge.host_binding_ipv4 │ --ip │ Default IP when binding │
│ │ │ container ports │
├────────────────────────────────────────────────┼────────────┼────────────────────────────────┤
│ com.docker.network.driver.mtu │ --mtu │ Set the containers network MTU │
├────────────────────────────────────────────────┼────────────┼────────────────────────────────┤
│ com.docker.network.container_iface_prefix │ - │ Set a custom prefix for │
│ │ │ container interfaces │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────┴────────────┴────────────────────────────────┘
The following arguments can be passed to docker network create for any network driver, again with their
approximate equivalents to docker daemon.
┌────────────┬──────────────┬──────────────────────────────┐
│ Argument │ Equivalent │ Description │
├────────────┼──────────────┼──────────────────────────────┤
│ --gateway │ - │ IPv4 or IPv6 Gateway for the │
│ │ │ master subnet │
├────────────┼──────────────┼──────────────────────────────┤
│ --ip-range │ --fixed-cidr │ Allocate IPs from a range │
├────────────┼──────────────┼──────────────────────────────┤
│ --internal │ - │ Restrict external access to │
│ │ │ the network │
├────────────┼──────────────┼──────────────────────────────┤
│ --ipv6 │ --ipv6 │ Enable IPv6 networking │
├────────────┼──────────────┼──────────────────────────────┤
│ --subnet │ --bip │ Subnet for network │
└────────────┴──────────────┴──────────────────────────────┘
For example, let's use -o or --opt options to specify an IP address binding when publishing ports:
$ docker network create \
-o "com.docker.network.bridge.host_binding_ipv4"="172.19.0.1" \
simple-network
Network internal mode
By default, when you connect a container to an overlay network, Docker also connects a bridge network to
it to provide external connectivity. If you want to create an externally isolated overlay network, you
can specify the --internal option.
Network ingress mode
You can create the network which will be used to provide the routing-mesh in the swarm cluster. You do so
by specifying --ingress when creating the network. Only one ingress network can be created at the time.
The network can be removed only if no services depend on it. Any option available when creating an
overlay network is also available when creating the ingress network, besides the --attachable option.
$ docker network create -d overlay \
--subnet=10.11.0.0/16 \
--ingress \
--opt com.docker.network.driver.mtu=9216 \
--opt encrypted=true \
my-ingress-network
Run services on predefined networks
You can create services on the predefined docker networks bridge and host.
$ docker service create --name my-service \
--network host \
--replicas 2 \
busybox top
Swarm networks with local scope drivers
You can create a swarm network with local scope network drivers. You do so by promoting the network scope
to swarm during the creation of the network. You will then be able to use this network when creating
services.
$ docker network create -d bridge \
--scope swarm \
--attachable \
swarm-network
For network drivers which provide connectivity across hosts (ex. macvlan), if node specific
configurations are needed in order to plumb the network on each host, you will supply that configuration
via a configuration only network. When you create the swarm scoped network, you will then specify the
name of the network which contains the configuration.
node1$ docker network create --config-only --subnet 192.168.100.0/24 --gateway 192.168.100.115 mv-config
node2$ docker network create --config-only --subnet 192.168.200.0/24 --gateway 192.168.200.202 mv-config
node1$ docker network create -d macvlan --scope swarm --config-from mv-config --attachable swarm-network
OPTIONS
--attachable[=false] Enable manual container attachment
--aux-address=map[] Auxiliary IPv4 or IPv6 addresses used by Network driver
--config-from="" The network from which to copy the configuration
--config-only[=false] Create a configuration only network
-d, --driver="bridge" Driver to manage the Network
--gateway=[] IPv4 or IPv6 Gateway for the master subnet
--ingress[=false] Create swarm routing-mesh network
--internal[=false] Restrict external access to the network
--ip-range=[] Allocate container ip from a sub-range
--ipam-driver="default" IP Address Management Driver
--ipam-opt=map[] Set IPAM driver specific options
--ipv4[=true] Enable or disable IPv4 address assignment
--ipv6[=false] Enable or disable IPv6 address assignment
--label= Set metadata on a network
-o, --opt=map[] Set driver specific options
--scope="" Control the network's scope
--subnet=[] Subnet in CIDR format that represents a network segment
SEE ALSO
docker-network(1)
Docker Community Jun 2025 DOCKER(1)