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Private networking

Free private VLANs between your servers

Put replication, storage and cluster traffic on a private VLAN between your servers in the same location. It is free, and internal traffic is not billed.

Deploy a serverRead the docs
Configure the private VLAN with Netplan on Ubuntu
# Use your own interface name, VLAN ID and private address
cat > /etc/netplan/60-private.yaml <<'EOF'
network:
  version: 2
  ethernets:
    eno2: {}
  vlans:
    vlan100:
      id: 100
      link: eno2
      addresses: [10.10.0.11/24]
EOF
chmod 600 /etc/netplan/60-private.yaml
netplan try   # reverts unless you confirm within 120 seconds

Highlights

Free, traffic included

Private networking costs nothing, and traffic between your servers on the VLAN is not billed.

Off the public internet

Keep databases, caches and admin interfaces off public interfaces, reachable only from your own servers.

Layer 2 between your servers

Your servers in a location share a VLAN, and you choose the addressing, from private IPv4 ranges to IPv6 unique local addresses.

Per location

Each private network spans one location; connect locations with an encrypted tunnel over unmetered public traffic.

How it works

Private networking, step by step.

  1. 1

    Deploy in one location

    Order the servers that need to talk to each other in the same location.

  2. 2

    Get your VLAN details

    Your servers in that location are attached to a VLAN reserved for your account, with its own VLAN ID.

  3. 3

    Configure the interface

    Add a VLAN interface with a private address on each server, for example with Netplan on Ubuntu.

  4. 4

    Move internal traffic over

    Bind replication, storage and cluster services to the private addresses and close them on public interfaces.

In detail

What you should know.

01

What to put on the private network

Anything that only talks to your other servers belongs on the VLAN:

  • Database replication: PostgreSQL streaming replication, MySQL replication, Redis replicas.
  • Storage traffic: Ceph public and cluster networks, NFS, iSCSI, and backup jobs to a Storage 264.
  • Cluster control planes: Corosync for Proxmox VE, etcd for Kubernetes, ClickHouse Keeper, Kafka inter-broker traffic.
  • Internal services: service-to-service APIs, Redis and Memcached, metrics scraping.

Plan addressing once. Use a dedicated RFC 1918 range such as 10.10.0.0/16, split into subnets by role, and keep it distinct from your office and VPN ranges to avoid routing conflicts later. Bind internal services to their private address and firewall the public interface, so a misconfiguration can't expose them. A private VLAN keeps traffic away from the internet, but it doesn't replace authentication and TLS between services.

02

Connecting servers across locations

Private VLANs stop at the edge of a location. To connect servers in, say, Frankfurt and Amsterdam, build an encrypted tunnel over the public network:

  • WireGuard for simple, fast point-to-point or hub-and-spoke tunnels.
  • IPsec with strongSwan when you need interoperability with existing firewalls.
  • TLS at the application layer for replication protocols that support it natively.

Public traffic is unmetered on every server, so cross-location replication and backups add no transfer fees. Latency is the real constraint: as an estimate, light in fiber adds about 1 ms of round-trip time per 100 km of path, so synchronous replication is practical within a metro area but rarely between continents. Run asynchronous replication across regions, and keep latency-sensitive clusters such as Ceph or etcd within one location.

Keep going

Documentation and related features.

All platform features

FAQ

Private networking, answered.

Is private networking really free?

Yes. Private VLANs between your servers in the same location are free, and internal traffic is not billed. Public traffic is unmetered as well, so neither side of your network adds usage charges.

Can I connect servers in different locations privately?

Private VLANs work within one location. Between locations, use an encrypted tunnel such as WireGuard or IPsec over the public network; public traffic is unmetered, so there are no transfer fees.

Which IP addresses should I use on the VLAN?

Any private range that suits you: an RFC 1918 IPv4 range such as 10.10.0.0/16, IPv6 unique local addresses, or both. Pick ranges that don't overlap your office or VPN networks.

Do I still need a firewall on the private interface?

It is good practice. The VLAN only carries traffic between your own servers, but restricting each service to the hosts that need it limits the damage if one server is compromised. Use TLS and authentication for replication and internal APIs as well.

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