IP Address Management (IPAM)
IP Address Management (IPAM) is responsible for the allocation and management of IP addresses used by network endpoints (container and others) managed by Cilium. Various IPAM modes are supported to meet the needs of different users:
Feature |
Kubernetes Host Scope |
Cluster Scope (default) |
Multi-Pool |
CRD-backed |
AWS ENI |
Azure IPAM |
GKE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Tunnel routing |
✅ |
✅ |
❌ |
❌ |
❌ |
❌ |
❌ |
Direct routing |
✅ |
✅ |
✅ |
✅ |
✅ |
✅ |
✅ |
CIDR Configuration |
Kubernetes |
Cilium |
Cilium |
External |
External (AWS) |
External (Azure) |
External (GCP) |
Multiple CIDRs per cluster |
❌ |
✅ |
✅ |
N/A |
N/A |
N/A |
N/A |
Multiple CIDRs per node |
❌ |
❌ |
✅ |
N/A |
N/A |
N/A |
N/A |
Dynamic CIDR/IP allocation |
❌ |
❌ |
✅ |
✅ |
✅ |
✅ |
❌ |
Don’t change the IPAM mode of an existing cluster. Changing the IPAM mode in a live environment may cause persistent disruption of connectivity for existing workloads. The safest path to change IPAM mode is to install a fresh Kubernetes cluster with the new IPAM configuration. If you are interested in extending Cilium to support migration between IPAM modes, see GitHub issue 27164.