Docker host network container service access under Windows

Question

If I run docker container using the host network (--network host), for any services running in the container their exposed port can be directly accessed from host right?

I always thought so until I'm running docker container using the host network under Windows --

• The ip a s eth0 shows that my container IP address is 192.168.65.3
• The route | awk '/^default/ { print $2 }' gives 192.168.65.1
• However, my host machine has an IP of 10.66.xx.xx

I.e., the container IP address and host IP are completely different. Unlike what the https://www.metricfire.com/blog/understanding-dockers-net-host-option/ says.

Anyway, if I'm running any services in the container, how to expose their port so that they can be directly accessed from host? (I thought with host network (--network host), you no longer need to map port from container to host)

thx

docker version
Client: Docker Engine - Community
 Version:           19.03.8
 API version:       1.40
 Go version:        go1.12.17
 Git commit:        afacb8b
 Built:             Wed Mar 11 01:23:10 2020
 OS/Arch:           windows/amd64
 Experimental:      false

Server: Docker Engine - Community
 Engine:
  Version:          19.03.8
  API version:      1.40 (minimum version 1.12)
  Go version:       go1.12.17
  Git commit:       afacb8b
  Built:            Wed Mar 11 01:29:16 2020
  OS/Arch:          linux/amd64
  Experimental:     false
 containerd:
  Version:          v1.2.13
  GitCommit:        7ad184331fa3e55e52b890ea95e65ba581ae3429
 runc:
  Version:          1.0.0-rc10
  GitCommit:        dc9208a3303feef5b3839f4323d9beb36df0a9dd
 docker-init:
  Version:          0.18.0
  GitCommit:        fec3683

Answer 1

Host networking is not supported on Windows:

The host networking driver only works on Linux hosts, and is not supported on Docker Desktop for Mac, Docker Desktop for Windows, or Docker EE for Windows Server.

https://docs.docker.com/network/network-tutorial-host/

I would suggest trying the -p option to docker run, since that is supported on Windows.

Alternately, one forum user suggests using VirtualBox in bridged mode to install Linux, which can then use host networking. YMMV.