jpetazzo/pipework

Health v2 · maintenance only

Flags: no_releases

Adoption not part of the score

4253 stars · 718 forks observed · 2026-08-28

What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-29, confidence not recorded

Pipework is a shell-based Software-Defined Networking tool for connecting Linux containers (LXC and Docker) into arbitrary network topologies using veth pairs, bridges, VLANs, macvlan, and Open vSwitch. It was written in the early days of Docker and is explicitly no longer maintained.

Use cases

• connect docker containers to a custom bridge network
• assign a static ip address to a container
• put containers on a vlan
• connect a container to a physical network interface
• create complex network topologies between lxc containers
• use open vswitch with docker containers
• configure macvlan networking for containers

When to choose

• you maintain legacy Docker/LXC setups from the pre-2020 era that already use pipework
• you need a quick shell script to plumb containers into unusual topologies on old kernels
• you're studying how container networking plumbing works

When to avoid

• starting any new project - it is unmaintained and will break with modern Docker networking
• you need supported container networking - use Docker's native networking, CNI, or Cilium/Calico instead
• you need security fixes or compatibility with recent kernel/Docker changes

Facets

cli-tool · maturity abandoned

networking developer-tools cli networking cli sdn lxc docker-networking shell veth openvswitch vlan macvlan dhcp containers devops linux docker

Member repositories

For agents

markdown · JSON · MCP: product_card(name="jpetazzo/pipework")