User-mode networking stack

With v1.19 CRC introduced a new network mode that allows users to work with a VPN turned on.
Instead of using a traditional NAT, it uses a userspace network stack. The virtual machine is now seen by the host operating system as a normal application.

Instructions

Windows

Since 1.32.1, the default network mode is usermode.

macOS

Since 1.26.0, the default network mode is usermode.

• Run the tray application
• Click start or run crc start

Linux

• Cleanup the previous installation of crc.
  Run crc delete, crc cleanup and remove the folder $HOME/.crc
• Remove eventual *.crc.testing records in your hosts file /etc/hosts.
• Activate the user network mode.
  crc config set network-mode user
• Prepare the host machine
  crc setup
• Start the virtual machine as usual
  crc start

Reaching the host from the VM

You can enable this feature with the config property host-network-access.

• Close the application (or the daemon) and the VM.
• crc config set host-network-access true
• Start the application (or the daemon) and the VM.

In your containers, you will be able to use host.crc.testing DNS name to reach the host. It is the equivalent of host.docker.internal in Docker Desktop.

Using with Docker Desktop

You can build your containers with Docker Desktop and push them to the OpenShift registry. On macOS and Linux, you can directly use docker login.

On Windows, this is slightly more complicated. Please follow this guide:

• https://github.com/code-ready/crc/issues/1917#issuecomment-814037029
• or https://github.com/code-ready/crc/issues/2354#issuecomment-851320171

What to test

• Please turn on your VPN software before and after starting CRC.
  We would like to know if CRC behave well and if you can login to the OpenShift console (use crc console).
• Deploy a pod that connects to a resource on your VPN network.

Technical details