k8s-l2-tunneler 0.2.0

Layer-2 TAP tunnel into a Kubernetes cluster via pod NAD bridge

k8s-l2-tunneler

Layer-2 TAP tunnel into a Kubernetes cluster. Your developer machine joins the cluster's pod network as a native L2 peer — ping, curl, and DNS all work against pod IPs directly, with no proxy or port-forwarding required.

Architecture

Developer machine
  TAP (stolen IP + MAC)
    └── socat/WireGuard client
          └── NodePort UDP
                └── Tunnel pod
                      socat/WireGuard server → tap0 ↔ br0 ↔ net1
                                                             │
                                                          nad-br0 (host bridge, per tunnel)
                                                             │
                                                             |    Donor pod
                                                           net1 ↔ br-donor ↔ eth0
                                                                              │
                                                                     cluster pod network

Two pods are created per tunnel:

Pod	Role
Tunnel pod	Runs the socat/WireGuard UDP server. Bridges tap0 (L2 tunnel endpoint) ↔ net1 (NAD)
Donor pod	Provides a CNI-registered IP + MAC to the developer TAP. Bridges net1 (NAD) ↔ eth0 (cluster) after identity is stolen

A NetworkAttachmentDefinition (Multus) creates a host-side Linux bridge (nad-tun-<id>) that connects both pods' net1 interfaces — this is the cross-pod L2 segment that was impossible to create from inside either pod.

Both pods are pinned to the same node (mandatory for the host bridge to connect them).

When connecting to an existing cni the donor pod is not created, instead the identity is stolen directly from the NetworkAttachmentDefinition interface on the tunnel pod.

Requirements

Requirement	Notes
Multus CNI	Must be installed cluster-side
socat/WireGuard	Must be installed on the developer machine
Root / sudo	TAP creation + raw ARP sockets need CAP_NET_ADMIN
Python ≥ 3.8
uv	Package manager

Installation

uv tool install k8s-l2-tunneler
# or, from source:
git clone ...
cd k8s-l2-tunneler
uv sync

Usage

# Create a tunnel (namespace defaults to owner name if omitted)
sudo uv run k8s-l2-tunneler connect-to-cluster --owner alice

# With an explicit namespace and custom local TAP name
sudo uv run k8s-l2-tunneler connect-to-cluster --owner alice --namespace my-ns --local-iface-name cluster-net

# When the cluster is deployed behind a NAT and the pod is able to directly ping your machine's IP
# TODO: support both cluster behind NAT and developer behind NAT using shared STUN server.
sudo uv run k8s-l2-tunneler connect-to-cluster --owner alice --cluster-behind-nat

# Tear it down
sudo uv run k8s-l2-tunneler clean --owner alice

CNI compatibility

CNI	Works	Notes
Flannel VXLAN	✅	Best case — cni0 bridge does MAC learning
Flannel host-gw	✅	Same as VXLAN
Canal	✅	Flannel data plane; check NetworkPolicy
Calico BGP	✅*	*TAP MAC not stolen; promisc mode used instead
Calico VXLAN	✅*	Same as Calico BGP
Cilium	✅	Works under default policy (no strict source-IP enforcement)
WeaveNet	✅	Weave L2 mesh propagates MAC correctly
Antrea	✅	OVS flows match on existing (port, IP) registration

MTU

All interfaces in the packet path are configured to MTU 1370 to prevent fragmentation across the network path and any CNI overlay encapsulation.

Development

uv sync
uv run ruff format src/
uv run ruff check src/ --fix
uv run ruff check src/
uv run mypy src/