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Cilium
Hard
Architecture

In Cilium's tunnel mode (VXLAN or Geneve), how does the receiving node learn the security identity of a packet sent by a pod on another node?

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Answer: The sending node puts the source identity in the encapsulation header

Explanation

Encapsulation protocols can carry metadata with each packet. Cilium uses this to send the source security identity, in the VXLAN VNI or the Geneve header, so the destination node can enforce policy without a lookup. In native routing mode there's no tunnel header, so Cilium maps the source IP to an identity through its ipcache instead.