How do I install Netra?

Copy the stdio config for Cursor, Claude Desktop, Claude Code, or VS Code on this page. It uses the publisher's install, not a PlugMCP proxy.

Does Netra need an API key?

The publisher lists these environment variables: NETRA_URL, NETRA_API_KEY, NETRA_MCP_ALLOW_MUTATIONS, NETRA_MCP_ACTOR.

When was Netra last checked?

Last checked 2026-11-10. eBPF network observability and safe emergency control for Linux and Kubernetes.

Netra MCP server

Netra

See every packet's story. Contain the bad ones. Let go automatically.

Standalone eBPF network observability and emergency network control for Linux/Kubernetes — with optional Cilium + Hubble enrichment. Kernel drop attribution, path and congestion diagnostics, live packet capture, and leased deny rules that return to observe on their own, on any CNI.

Observe-first · Lease-bounded, fails open · No CNI required · No payload collection · 190 MCP tools

📖 Read the full docs — quickstart, architecture, security model, and a product tour.

What's new

From CHANGELOG.md (0.28.2 to 0.30.0):


Per-second metrics (0.30.0)	Host, network, cgroup, process-group, eBPF and workload RED series every second, with anomaly detection, metric alerts, app collectors, exporters, and a link from any chart spike to the flows and drops behind it. Docs →
Node isolation (0.30.0)	A per-node allow-only egress filter in shadow (count what it would block) or enforce, as a standalone TCX program. Docs →
Security review (0.30.0)	DNS query types, versioned threat feeds with expiry, rollback and optional HTTPS refresh, deny-predicate overlap review and exact-workload incident correlation. Docs →
L7 metadata on current kernels (0.30.0)	TLS SNI, HTTP Host and DNS names load again on Linux 6.8+ (they were rejected by the verifier), using `bpf_loop` on Linux 5.17+. Docs →
Netlink change recorder	Which link, address, route or neighbor changed on a node, and when, across every routing table. Docs →
Netlink findings and alerts	Default route removed, gateway unreachable, uplink down, MTU changed, derived from the recorded changes.
Who made the change	An `fentry` on `rtnetlink_rcv_msg` attributes each modifying netlink request to the process that sent it.
BPF attachment inventory	Netra notices when its own hooks have silently gone, for example after a NIC or bond is recreated. Docs →
One UX contract	Dashboard and docs site follow one design contract; Apple light by default, dark one click away.

Why Netra

When this happens…	Netra gives you…
Traffic disappears and nobody can say where	Kernel drop attribution: the connection, the reason, and the kernel function that dropped it
You need to act now, but enforcement is scary	Leased deny that reverts by itself, previewed against live traffic first
Your CNI is not Cilium, or you cannot change it	cgroup v2 hooks that work on any CNI, with no kernel module and no app changes
"The network is slow" with no evidence	TCP path diagnostics and a Congestion Map that colors every layer of the Linux network stack by its worst finding
A chart spiked and you need to know why	Per-second metrics with anomaly detection, where every spike links to the flows, drop reasons and captures from that window
You need packets from one node, now	Filtered, time-bounded live capture with a Wireshark-style layered decode, one click from a finding
Your AI agent should investigate without breaking things	An MCP server with 190 tools; mutations stay behind `NETRA_MCP_ALLOW_MUTATIONS`

Netra does not require Cilium. The node agent owns its own programs and maps below /sys/fs/bpf/netra. If Cilium/Hubble exists, Netra can manage CiliumNetworkPolicy and display Hubble flows, but both integrations are opt-in.

Capabilities at a glance — Observe, Diagnose, Contain, Integrate

Netra vs Cilium + Hubble

Netra vs Cilium + Hubble: eBPF visibility and a kill switch, keep your CNI

	Netra	Cilium + Hubble
What it is	Observability and emergency control that runs next to your CNI	A CNI with Hubble observability built on its datapath
Adoption	Helm install of a controller and a node agent DaemonSet; no CNI change	Cilium becomes the cluster's CNI
Kernel hooks	cgroup skb, connect/sendmsg, sockops; optional `kfree_skb`, TCX and XDP	Cilium's own eBPF datapath
Enforcement model	Leased deny that returns to observe when the lease expires or the controller loses state	Network policies persist until removed
Drop diagnosis	Kernel drop reason and dropping function per connection, plus Drop Explain	Hubble flow verdicts and drop reasons from the Cilium datapath
Plain Linux hosts	The same agent and hooks	Built around Cilium-managed networking
Works together	Optional `CiliumNetworkPolicy` authoring and Hubble Relay flows	—
Choose Cilium + Hubble when		You want a full CNI with policy enforcement and Hubble observability built in, and can make it your CNI

Netra never modifies or pins over Cilium-owned BPF maps, so the two can share a cluster.

See it live

Overview, the Firewall page's unified rules table and NetPol v2 allow-list, then a real in-browser VNC console connected to a running KubeVirt VM — captured against a live lab deployment, not a mockup:

Netra live demo — Overview, Firewall/NetPol v2, in-browser VNC console

Netra dashboard — Overview

The Overview page. More screens follow in Observe, Diagnose and Contain.

How it fits together

How Netra works — kernel hooks, pinned maps, node agent, controller, and you

                        Browser / netractl
                               |
                               v
                    +---------------------+
                    |      netrad        |
                    | API + UI + state    |
                    +----------+----------+
                               |
                 desired config| node reports
                               v
       +------------------------------------------------+
       |          netra-agent on every Linux node      |
       |                                                |
       | cgroup skb + socket hooks       optional TCX   |
       |          |                         optional XDP |
       |          +------ Netra maps/ring buffer ------+
       |                 /sys/fs/bpf/netra             |
       +------------------------------------------------+

netrad serves HTTPS on :30870 by default. Hook model, visibility boundaries and the optional Cilium/Hubble integration: docs/architecture.md · Standalone eBPF.

Quickstart

make install                              # netractl → /usr/local/bin (or PREFIX=$HOME/.local)
netractl install --namespace netra-system # Helm install: controller + node agent DaemonSet
netractl status

Then open https://<node-ip>:30870 and sign in. The dashboard sits behind a login screen — see Signing in (the nav bar and login screen carry the Zyvor mark).

Requires Linux with cgroup v2 and bpffs; practical baseline Linux 5.8+ (TCX 6.6+). Run netra-doctor first. Full steps, Helm values, Cilium/Hubble and CLI examples: Install guide.

Observe

Flows with pod and owner attribution, TCP health, DNS, TLS SNI and HTTP Host metadata, behavior baselines and drift. Live Hubble flows when Cilium is present. Capabilities →

Hubble live flows

Flow stream detail

Diagnose

TCP path diagnostics measure connect latency and transport pressure per workload, plus edge-observed handshake and RTT histograms that see NAT'd flows. Path → · Edge intel →

TCP Path Diagnostics — pressure, connect latency, and edge TCP intel

Congestion Map colors every layer of the Linux network stack by its worst finding, cluster-wide. One click jumps to a capture on the offending node. Kernel diagnostics →

Congestion Map — colored by severity, cluster-wide

Packet Capture streams a filtered, time-bounded capture live, color-coded by protocol, with a Wireshark-style layered decode and hex dump. Opt-in auto-capture persists PCAPs on critical findings. Capture →

Capture Live View — color-coded terminal feed with pod/VM attribution

Wireshark-style packet detail, expanded from a live-view row

A Congestion Map finding to a live, decoded, color-coded capture on the offending node:

Netra live demo — Congestion Map finding to live packet capture

Drop Explain answers "why was this dropped?" with kernel reasons and policy context. Drop diagnostics → · Drop info →

Drop explain

More: DNS, ICMP, behavior and rate insights.

Monitor

Per-second metrics, zero config. Every node streams host, network stack, conntrack, cgroup, process-group, eBPF datapath and per-workload RED series to the controller, kept at 1 s for an hour, 1 min for two weeks and 1 h for a year. The Metrics page charts every context live, with an anomaly ribbon on each chart. Metrics →

Anomaly detection on every dimension (unsupervised k-means, stdlib Go), plus "what changed here" ranking for any time range you drag across. Anomalies →
Metric alerts with Netdata-style rules and hysteresis, over 40 built in (CPU, memory, disk, interfaces, TCP, conntrack, workload RED, eBPF drops), sent through your existing Slack, webhook or PagerDuty channels. Alerts →
Evidence behind every chart: a spike links straight to the flows, drop reasons, TCP/DNS/HTTP boards and captures from the same window. Metrics and packets in one place.
App collectors for nginx, Apache, HAProxy, Redis, memcached, Envoy, CoreDNS, etcd and any Prometheus endpoint, with optional discovery. Apps →
Export to Prometheus remote write, OTLP or Graphite, and a read-only fleet roll-up across clusters.

Collectors are read-only, process groups use the kernel comm only (never argv or environment), and alerts never touch enforcement.

Contain

Deny by IP, CIDR, port, DNS name, TLS SNI, UID or process, scoped to a namespace, pod, owner or label. Preview the blast radius first. Policy apply stays plan-token + risk confirm. Firewall page →

Firewall dashboard — unified rules, NetPol v2 allow-list/default-deny

Policy authoring

Policy dry-run / preflight

With Cilium enabled, Pods and VMs get one-click lock down / unlock through the same plan → receipt → apply path:

Pods inventory with one-click lock down / unlock

Safe by design

Lease-bounded enforcement — observe, leased enforce, automatic return to observe

Promise	What it means
Observe-first	Rules can be staged while observing. Nothing is dropped until you enforce
Leased enforcement	Returns to observe when the lease expires, the agent cannot refresh controller state, the controller restarts, or HA leadership changes
No payloads	No application payloads, no argv/cmdline, no Secret contents. Opt-in sampled sensors keep counts only
Gated automation	MCP mutations stay behind `NETRA_MCP_ALLOW_MUTATIONS`; AI endpoints are read-only
Cilium-safe	Never modifies or pins over Cilium-owned BPF maps

Details: Architecture and visibility boundaries · Safety and persistence.

For AI agents and operators

netractl — the operator CLI. Docs →
Security review — DNS QTYPE, versioned threat feeds with TTL/rollback and optional HTTPS refresh, flat deny-predicate suggestions, and exact-workload security correlation. Docs →
MCP server — 190 stdio tools (130 read, 60 opt-in mutating) for AI agents. Docs →
- MCP Registry: io.github.zyvorai/netra (live since v0.30.1), image ghcr.io/zyvorai/netra-mcp:0.32.0. Install and use →
Built-in AI briefs — heuristic by default, optional OpenAI-compatible rewrite, read-only. Docs →
Export — SIEM (CEF, syslog, JSONL, OTLP), Prometheus (scrape and remote write), Grafana, Loki, Graphite, Slack and Teams ChatOps.

Netra or PacketWolf?

Netra and PacketWolf cover the same eBPF territory from opposite directions. They are counterparts, not a wired pipeline.

Choose Netra when…	Choose PacketWolf when…
CNI-independent observe + leased emergency kill-switch	Cilium is already the CNI of record
Path/Drop/Congestion diagnostics without a full platform	Full AutoPolicy / healer / operator stack

Rules: docs/packetwolf.md · Suite placement.

Documentation map

I want to…	Read
See everything Netra observes and controls	Capabilities · Feature catalog
Understand diagnostics	Diagnostics overview
Monitor nodes and workloads per second	Metrics · Metric alerts · Anomaly detection · App collectors
Understand the hooks and architecture	Architecture · Standalone eBPF
Install and configure	Install guide · Helm/manifests · Host readiness
Operate it	netractl · High availability
Browse the code	Repository layout · CI
Evaluate it as a buyer	Buyers guide · Brochure and PDFs ·

Maturity

Netra's latest release is 0.32.0 (CHANGELOG.md). Shipped observe and leased-control surfaces are GA. The table below says what runs by default versus what stays opt-in for privacy or safety (architecture):

Area	Status
cgroup skb ingress/egress, connect/sendmsg, sockops hooks	GA (default)
`kfree_skb` drop reasons, TCX, XDP	GA (optional attach), on selected interfaces
Enforcement	GA — observe by default; leased enforce returns to observe
TLS SNI, HTTP Host, DNS names and query types	GA (default, `NETRA_L7=auto`), Linux 5.17+; dropped on older kernels
TLS fingerprints (JA3/JA4)	GA (default, `agent.tlsfp: auto`)
DNS anomaly detect / scan detect	GA (default); observe-only
Per-second metrics, anomalies, metric alerts	GA (default, `NETRA_METRICS_ENABLED`); alerts only notify
Auto-capture on critical drops	GA (default); bounded duration/cooldown/PPS; disable with `alerting.autoCapture.enabled=false`
Auto-mitigate (volumetric)	GA (default); acts only under an active enforce lease; fails open
Node isolation	GA — loaded (`agent.nodeIsolation: auto`), inert until a per-node policy is set; shadow or enforce (leased)
Security review, threat-feed history and rollback	GA (read-only); HTTPS feed refresh only when `NETRA_INTEL_SOURCE_URL` is set
Historical deny preview (flow history)	GA — live counters plus optional `--since` / flowlog window
Sampled L7 and TLS plaintext sensors	Opt-in (privacy), off by default
Cilium `CiliumNetworkPolicy` and Hubble integration	Opt-in (`cilium.enabled`, `hubble.enabled`)
MCP mutating tools	Opt-in (safety, `NETRA_MCP_ALLOW_MUTATIONS`)

Part of the Zyvor stack

Product	Role next to Netra
Netra	Standalone eBPF network observability and leased emergency control, on any CNI
Paqtra	Next to Netra on Cilium clusters: Hubble flow tracing, drop explanations and policy preview
Rivora	Next to Netra: CNI-independent eBPF L4 load balancer with XDP, Maglev and BGP
Zorvia	Next to Netra: KubeVirt VM platform; with Cilium enabled, Netra's VMs page shows KubeVirt VMs with live flows and lock down
netevd	Next to Netra on hosts: netlink and eBPF network events into hook scripts and policy routing

→ zyvor.dev

License

Netra is source-available under the Zyvor Production License v1.0 (SPDX LicenseRef-Zyvor-Production-1.0, also in LICENSES/).

Free for evaluation, development, testing, research, education, non-production labs and all other non-production use.
Production use requires an annual enterprise subscription. Plans, support levels and terms: docs/SUBSCRIPTION-MODEL.md · Enterprise pricing · Pricing · [email protected].

Contributions: CONTRIBUTING.md. Report vulnerabilities privately per SECURITY.md.

Netra

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Server facts

Tools

Questions

How do I install Netra?

Does Netra need an API key?

What transport does Netra use?

When was Netra last checked?

Documentation

Netra

See every packet's story. Contain the bad ones. Let go automatically.

What's new

Why Netra

Netra vs Cilium + Hubble

See it live

How it fits together

Quickstart

Observe

Diagnose

Monitor

Contain

Safe by design

For AI agents and operators

Netra or PacketWolf?

Documentation map

Maturity

Part of the Zyvor stack

License

See it, contain it, let go automatically