As we've seen in earlier chapters, Docker does a great job of handling many container networking needs. However, this does not limit you to using only Docker-provided network elements to connect containers. So while Docker can facilitate the networking for you, you can also connect containers manually. The drawback to this approach is that Docker becomes unaware of the network state of the container because it wasn't involved in network provisioning. As we'll see in Chapter 7, Working with Weave Net, Docker now also supports custom or third-party network drivers that help bridge the gap between native Docker and third-party or custom container network configurations.