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BackFlexibly Share Private Networks
Minimize the attack surface of your setups and connect only those servers to the internet that truly need to be accessible from the outside. Private networks enable internal communication between your servers – even across project and organization boundaries, if necessary. And if your circumstances change, you can flexibly adjust network sharing in the cloud control panel at any time to meet your current needs.
One feature, many use cases
In many cases, it is beneficial to keep certain virtual servers completely disconnected from the internet, thereby thwarting numerous attacks before they even begin. For example, your web servers do not need a direct internet connection if HTTPS requests are routed through our load balancer "as a service" anyway. The same applies to a database backend that should be accessible exclusively from your web application, or to a central log server in your infrastructure.
To connect to the private network for maintenance work on such servers, you may have set up a VPN connection. If you now add a new project, you do not need to duplicate your VPN setup: simply "extend" your existing private "management network" into the new project; likewise for the DB network, the logging network, and so on. This way, you can set up central services once and then use them multiple times without sacrificing the benefits of separate projects – such as different teams and permissions, separately reported costs, or limiting the scope of API tokens.
Share networks quickly and easily
You can manage your private networks easily and intuitively in the control panel under "Networking > Networks". In a network's detail view, you will find the "Sharing" tab – here you can see which other projects the network is already shared with (or which other project is sharing it with yours), and you can make changes for your own networks right away.
To share a network with another project, simply click "Share with Project". You will then see all the projects you have access to and can select the one you are looking for. Please note: To set up a new sharing on your own, you need write access to both projects involved. If the desired project does not appear in the selection at all or is marked as "read-only", use the "create a ticket" link in the help text on the side instead – our support team will then obtain the necessary confirmation and set up sharing for you.
Also note that you can only remove an existing sharing if no servers in the other project are connected to your network anymore. Furthermore, network properties such as the name and MTU can only be changed in the original project, not in projects with which the network is shared. Therefore, when creating a new, additional network, consider which project should ideally be the "owner" or in which direction you want to share the network.
Especially when not all servers are maintained by the same staff members, it can be helpful to set up separate projects and permissions. You can then share private networks between projects precisely where it is needed – quickly and easily with just a few clicks in the control panel.
Sharing is...
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