Skip to content

[docs] Document container tunnel enabled by default in Aspire 13.3 #772

New issue

Have a question about this project? Sign up for a free GitHub account to open an issue and contact its maintainers and the community.

Sign up for GitHub

By clicking “Sign up for GitHub”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy statement. We’ll occasionally send you account related emails.

Already on GitHub? Sign in to your account

Draft
aspire-repo-bot wants to merge 1 commit into
base: release/13.3
Choose a base branch
from
+40 −2
Draft

[docs] Document container tunnel enabled by default in Aspire 13.3 #772

Changes from all commits
Commits
Show all changes
1 commit
Select commit
File filter

Filter by extension

Filter by extension
Conversations
Failed to load comments.
Loading
Jump to
Jump to file
Failed to load files.
Loading
Diff view
Diff view
42 changes: 40 additions & 2 deletions src/frontend/src/content/docs/whats-new/aspire-13-3.mdx
View file
Open in desktop
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
---
title: What's new in Aspire 13.3
description: Aspire 13.3 introduces Azure Network Security Perimeter support and more.
description: Aspire 13.3 introduces Azure Network Security Perimeter support, enables the container tunnel by default, and more.
sidebar:
label: Aspire 13.3
order: 0
Expand All @@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ tableOfContents:
maxHeadingLevel: 2
---

import { Steps } from '@astrojs/starlight/components';
import { Steps, Aside } from '@astrojs/starlight/components';
import { Image } from 'astro:assets';
import LearnMore from '@components/LearnMore.astro';
import azureFrontDoorIcon from '@assets/icons/azure-front-door-icon.png';
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -98,3 +98,41 @@ NSPs support **Enforced** mode (blocks traffic that violates the rules) and **Le
<LearnMore>
For more details, see [Azure Virtual Network integration](/integrations/cloud/azure/azure-virtual-network/#add-a-network-security-perimeter).
</LearnMore>

## 🔗 Container tunnel enabled by default

Aspire 13.3 enables the **Aspire container tunnel** by default, providing uniform container-to-host connectivity regardless of your container orchestrator.

Previously introduced as an opt-in experimental feature in Aspire 13.0, the container tunnel allows containers to reliably communicate with host-based services (such as the Aspire dashboard, OTEL collector, and other projects). Before this change, Docker Desktop users benefited from built-in host connectivity (`host.docker.internal`), while other container runtimes such as Docker Engine on Linux or Podman required manual workarounds.

With the tunnel enabled by default, all supported container orchestrators now behave consistently without any additional configuration.

<Aside type="note" title="Startup delay">
Containers that reference host-based endpoints will start slightly later (~3–4 seconds) than before, because the tunnel proxy container must start and allocate endpoints first. This is a one-time cost per application run and will improve in a future release when persistent tunnel support lands.
</Aside>

### Disabling the container tunnel

If you need to opt out, set the `ASPIRE_ENABLE_CONTAINER_TUNNEL` environment variable to `false` before starting your AppHost:

```bash title="Shell — Disable container tunnel"
ASPIRE_ENABLE_CONTAINER_TUNNEL=false dotnet run --project MyApp.AppHost
```

You can also disable it in `launchSettings.json`:

```json title="launchSettings.json"
{
"profiles": {
"MyApp.AppHost": {
"environmentVariables": {
"ASPIRE_ENABLE_CONTAINER_TUNNEL": "false"
}
}
}
}
```

<LearnMore>
For more details on container networking, see [Inner-loop networking overview](/fundamentals/networking-overview/).
</LearnMore>