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Create a router

Creating a router is the first step in building the network fabric and establishing a secure egress point for your applications. The router handles all application traffic transport and acts as a zero-trust relay node. This guide walks you through creating a new router entry in the console.

Steps​

  1. From the console, select your network from the dropdown in the left-hand menu.

  2. Click Routers from the same menu.

  3. Click the plus icon (+) to open the Create New Edge Router form.

  4. Fill in the fields:

    • Router Name: Enter a unique name for the router (e.g., aws-egress-router).
    • Select or create router attributes: Choose existing attributes or create new ones to define the router's characteristics (e.g., #aws-us-east or #datacenter-router). These are used for routing policies.

  5. Choose the router hosting type:

    • Hosted by NetFoundry: Select this if you want to use the NetFoundry-managed fabric. Click Setup Hosting to configure the details.
    • Customer-hosted: This is the default and required option for establishing egress points to your local applications.

  6. Toggle the Show more options switch to ON to configure advanced and optional settings.

  7. Click Save to create the router.

    You are returned to the list of routers, where you can download the registration key needed to complete the deployment on your host machine.

API calls panel​

When you create a resource, the console automatically builds the API request that the platform sends in the background. The API calls panel shows that request in JSON. The panel is read-only.

This panel lets you see the exact payload the controller receives when you create the resource. It's the same JSON you'd send if you were automating resource creation through the API.

The URL at the top of the panel is the API endpoint that receives the request.

Advanced options​

The advanced options control the router's specific behavior within the data plane fabric.

Tunneler​

These toggles control how the router handles traffic forwarding:

  • Tunneler Enabled: Set to YES. This enables the router to function as a Tunneler (the ingress/egress point), allowing it to take traffic from the NetFoundry overlay and send it out to its final destination, and vice-versa.
  • Allow Traversal: Set to YES. This allows the router to use network address translation (NAT) to communicate with other components in the fabric, even if it's behind a firewall or network boundary.

Custom tags​

Use Name and Value fields to attach any custom key–value tags to the router. Tags let you store metadata that's meaningful to your organization or automation tooling. They're optional and don't affect routing or access unless you build logic around them.

App data​

App data lets you attach arbitrary JSON that your applications or automation might use. This isn't used by the platform itself; it's simply a freeform JSON object that travels with the router identity.

If you don't have a specific use case, you can leave this as {}.