Windows Containers / Docker - Creating a 'bridged' or 'transparent' network

By default Windows Containers (or Docker on Server 2016) uses WinNAT to provide NAT functionality to containers - however in some cases you will likely want to run a container in bridged mode - i.e. provide direct network access to the container.

We can do this fairly easily with:

docker network create -d transparent -o com.docker.network.windowsshim.interface="Ethernet0" TransparentNet

Confirm with:

docker network ls

We can also check the details of the network with the 'inspect' switch for example:

docker network inspect <network-id>

Static IPs

If you wish to use a static IP on the container you need to ensure the '--subnet' switch is included when creating the network - for example:

docker network create -d transparent --subnet=10.11.12.0/24 --gateway=10.11.12.1 -o com.docker.network.windowsshim.interface="Ethernet0" TransparentNet

We can then launch new containers using the '--network' switch - for example:

docker run --network=<NETWORK-ID>

Unfortunately the Docker team have not yet provided us with the ability to change the network mode on existing containers - so you will have to re-create it.