The information provided in the following section regarding network-plugin-syncer is relevant only for Submariner releases prior to version 0.16. Starting from Submariner 0.16, this functionality has been incorporated into the route-agent.
The Network Plugin Syncer provides a framework for components to interface with the configured Kubernetes Container Network Interface (CNI) plugin to perform any API/database tasks necessary to facilitate routing cross-cluster traffic, like creating API objects that the CNI plugin will process or working with the specific CNI databases.
The detected CNI plugin implementation configured for the cluster is received by the Network Plugin Syncer, and executes the appropriate plugin handler component, if any.
The following table highlights the differences with the Route Agent:
| Route Agent | Network Plugin Syncer | |
|---|---|---|
| Configures the CNI plugin | x | |
| Configures low level network elements on the host | x | |
| Runs as a Kubernetes Deployment | x | |
| Runs as a Kubernetes Daemonset on every host | x |
This component is only necessary for specific Kubernetes CNI plugins like OVN Kubernetes.