---
title: Weave Proxy
layout: default
---

# Weave Proxy

 * [Advantages](#advantages)
 * [Setup](#setup)
 * [Usage](#usage)
 * [Automatic IP address assignment](#ipam)
 * [Usage with WeaveDNS](#usage-with-weavedns)
 * [Usage with TLS](#usage-with-tls)

## <a name="advantages"></a>Advantages

Instead of the `weave` command-line utility, you may prefer to use the
standard [Docker command-line
interface](https://docs.docker.com/reference/commandline/cli/), or the
[Docker remote
API](https://docs.docker.com/reference/api/docker_remote_api/). The
weave proxy sits between the `docker` command or API and the Docker
daemon, so that it can automatically attach containers to the weave
network.

Using the proxy brings some additional benefits over `weave run`. The
proxy ensures that the weave network interface is available before
starting a container's application process. Furthermore, containers
can be started in foreground mode, and can be automatically removed
(with the ususal `--rm`).

## <a name="setup"></a>Setup

Start the proxy with

    host1$ weave launch-proxy

By default, the proxy will connect to docker at
`unix:///var/run/docker.sock`, and listen on port 12375. However, we
can adjust the connection to docker via the `-H` argument. All docker
commands can be run via the proxy, so it is safe to globally adjust
your `DOCKER_HOST`, e.g.

    host1$ export DOCKER_HOST=localhost:12375
    host1$ docker ps
    ...

If you are working with a remote docker daemon, then `localhost` in
the above needs to be replaced with the docker daemon host, and any
firewalls inbetween need to be configured to permit access to
port 12375.

## <a name="usage"></a>Usage

When containers are created via the weave proxy, their entrypoint will
be modified to wait for the weave network interface to become
available. When they are started via the weave proxy, any IP addresses
and networks specified in the `WEAVE_CIDR` environment variable will
be attached. We can create and start a container via the weave proxy
with

    host1$ docker run -e WEAVE_CIDR=10.2.1.1/24 -ti ubuntu

or, equivalently with

    host1$ docker create -e WEAVE_CIDR=10.2.1.1/24 -ti ubuntu
    5ef831df61d50a1a49272357155a976595e7268e590f0a2c75693337b14e1382
    host1$ docker start 5ef831df61d50a1a49272357155a976595e7268e590f0a2c75693337b14e1382

Multiple IP addresses and networks can be supplied in the `WEAVE_CIDR`
variable by space-separating them, as in
`WEAVE_CIDR="10.2.1.1/24 10.2.2.1/24"`.

## <a name="ipam"></a>Automatic IP address assignment

If [automatic IP address assignment](ipam.html) is enabled in weave,
e.g. by launching it with

    host1$ weave launch -iprange 10.2.3.0/24

then containers started via the proxy can be automatically assigned an
IP address by providing a blank `WEAVE_CIDR` environment variable, as
in

    host1$ docker run -e WEAVE_CIDR= -ti ubuntu

Furthermore, it is possible to configure the proxy such that all
containers started via it are automatically assigned an IP address and
attached to weave network, *without having to specify any special
environment variables or other options*. To do this we launch the
proxy with the `--with-ipam` option, e.g.

    host1$ weave launch-proxy --with-ipam

Now any container started via the proxy, e.g. with

    host1$ docker run -ti ubuntu

gets attached to the weave network with an automatically assigned IP
address. Containers started with a `WEAVE_CIDR` environment variable
are handled as before.

## <a name="usage-with-weavedns"></a>Usage with WeaveDNS

Containers started via the proxy can be automatically configured to
use WeaveDNS for name resolution. To accomplish this we need to launch
the proxy with the `--with-dns` option

    host1$ weave launch
    host1$ weave launch-dns 10.2.254.1/24
    host1$ weave launch-proxy --with-dns

With this done, any containers connected via IPAM or `WEAVE_CIDR=...`,
which are launched through the proxy will use weaveDNS for name
resolution. WeaveDNS is used in addition to any dns servers specified
via the `--dns` option. More details on weaveDNS can be found in the
[weaveDNS documentation](weavedns.html).

## <a name="usage-with-tls"></a>Usage with TLS

If you are using docker with TLS, you probably want to talk to
the proxy over TLS. Launching the proxy with TLS is done
with the same command-line flags as the docker daemon. For example, if
you have generated your certificates and keys into the docker host's
`/tls` directory, we can launch the proxy with:

    host1$ weave launch-proxy --tlsverify --tlscacert=/tls/ca.pem \
             --tlscert=/tls/server-cert.pem --tlskey=/tls/server-key.pem

The paths to your certificates and key must be provided as absolute
paths which exist on the docker host.

Because the proxy connects to the docker daemon at
`unix:///var/run/docker.sock`, you must ensure that the daemon is
listening there. To do this, you will need to pass the `-H
unix:///var/run/docker.sock` option when starting the docker daemon,
in addition to the `-H` options for configuring the TCP listener. See
[the Docker documentation](https://docs.docker.com/articles/basics/#bind-docker-to-another-hostport-or-a-unix-socket)
for an example.

With the proxy running over TLS, we can configure our regular docker
client

    host1$ docker --tlsverify --tlscacert=ca.pem --tlscert=cert.pem \
             --tlskey=key.pem -H=tcp://host1:12375 version

The certificates and keys used by the client will need to be present
on your client machine.

More details on generating certificates, and configuring docker with
TLS can be found in the [docker
documentation](https://docs.docker.com/articles/https/).