openstack-manuals/doc/install-guide/section_neutron-concepts.xml
Joseph Robinson 6fed35279e Install guide networking concepts sentence edits
Reduced repetition of the term Networking, and adjusted sentence
structure to improve clarity - edits centred on sentences about the
external network in particular.

Change-Id: Id6e03196c4d5f00dd8023b0f8d6ac3219176ca96
backport: none
Closes-Bug: #1325798
2014-09-10 13:13:05 +10:00

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3.7 KiB
XML

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<section xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"
xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude"
xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
version="5.0"
xml:id="neutron-concepts">
<title>Networking concepts</title>
<para>OpenStack Networking (neutron) manages all networking facets
for the Virtual Networking Infrastructure (VNI) and the access
layer aspects of the Physical Networking Infrastructure (PNI) in
your OpenStack environment. OpenStack Networking enables tenants
to create advanced virtual network topologies including services
such as <glossterm baseform="firewall">firewalls</glossterm>,
<glossterm baseform="load balancer">load balancers</glossterm>,
and <glossterm baseform="virtual private network (VPN)">virtual
private networks (VPNs)</glossterm>.</para>
<para>Networking provides the networks, subnets, and routers object
abstractions. Each abstraction has functionality that mimics its
physical counterpart: networks contain subnets, and routers route
traffic between different subnet and networks.</para>
<para>Each router has one gateway that connects to a network, and
many interfaces connected to subnets. Subnets can access machines
on other subnets connected to the same router.</para>
<para>Any given Networking set up has at least one external network.
Unlike the other networks, the external network is not merely a
virtually defined network. Instead, it represents a view into a
slice of the physical, external network accessible outside the
OpenStack installation. IP addresses on the external network are
accessible by anybody physically on the outside network. Because
the external network merely represents a view into the outside
network, DHCP is disabled on this network.</para>
<para>In addition to external networks, any Networking set up has
one or more internal networks. These software-defined networks
connect directly to the VMs. Only the VMs on any given internal
network, or those on subnets connected through interfaces to a
similar router, can access VMs connected to that network
directly.</para>
<para>For the outside network to access VMs, and vice versa, routers
between the networks are needed. Each router has one gateway that
is connected to a network and many interfaces that are connected
to subnets. Like a physical router, subnets can access machines on
other subnets that are connected to the same router, and machines
can access the outside network through the gateway for the
router.</para>
<para>Additionally, you can allocate IP addresses on external
networks to ports on the internal network. Whenever something is
connected to a subnet, that connection is called a port.You can
associate external network IP addresses with ports to VMs. This
way, entities on the outside network can access VMs.</para>
<para>Networking also supports <emphasis role="italic">security
groups</emphasis>. Security groups enable administrators to
define firewall rules in groups. A VM can belong to one or more
security groups, and Networking applies the rules in those
security groups to block or unblock ports, port ranges, or traffic
types for that VM.</para>
<para>Each plug-in that Networking uses has its own concepts. While
not vital to operating the VNI and OpenStack environment,
understanding these concepts can help you set up Networking.
All Networking installations use a core plug-in and a security group
plug-in (or just the No-Op security group plug-in). Additionally,
Firewall-as-a-Service (FWaaS) and Load-Balancer-as-a-Service (LBaaS)
plug-ins are available.</para>
</section>