DOCKER(1) Docker User Manuals DOCKER(1)
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 con-
tainers 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 ser-
vice.
The --attachable option used in the example above disables this re-
striction, and allows for both swarm services and manually started con-
tainers 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 responsi-
bility 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 de-
fault VIP-based endpoint-mode. This recommendation addresses limita-
tions 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 discov-
ery ⟨https://docs.docker.com/engine/swarm/networking/#configure-ser-
vice-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 al-
ready running, use the docker network connect subcommand.
You can connect multiple containers to the same network. Once con-
nected, the containers can communicate using only another container's
IP address or name. For overlay networks or custom plugins that sup-
port 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 sub-
net:
$ docker network create --driver=bridge --subnet=192.168.0.0/16 br0
Additionally, you also specify the --gateway --ip-range and --aux-ad-
dress 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 in-
side a preferred pool. For overlay networks and for network driver
plugins that support it you can create multiple subnetworks. This exam-
ple 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 sub-
networks 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 Con- │
│ │ │ tainer Connectivity │
├───────────────────────────────────────────────┼────────────┼────────────────────────────────┤
│com.docker.network.bridge.host_binding_ipv4 │ --ip │ Default IP when binding con- │
│ │ │ tainer ports │
├───────────────────────────────────────────────┼────────────┼────────────────────────────────┤
│com.docker.network.driver.mtu │ --mtu │ Set the containers network MTU │
├───────────────────────────────────────────────┼────────────┼────────────────────────────────┤
│com.docker.network.container_iface_prefix │ - │ Set a custom prefix for con- │
│ │ │ tainer interfaces │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────┴────────────┴────────────────────────────────┘
The following arguments can be passed to docker network create for any
network driver, again with their approximate equivalents to docker dae-
mon.
┌───────────┬──────────────┬───────────────────────────┐
│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 cre-
ating 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 cre-
ating 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 ser-
vices.
$ 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 con-
figuration only network. When you create the swarm scoped network, you
will then specify the name of the network which contains the configura-
tion.
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 configu-
ration
--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 Apr 2026 DOCKER(1)
Generated by dwww version 1.14 on Sat Jun 13 09:42:08 CEST 2026.