A Private Network is an internal network your servers use to talk to each other. Every project already has one, so you only create your own when you want to separate workloads. A network needs a subnet (its range of addresses) before servers can use it.
Create the network and subnet
- Open Networking, then Private Networks, and create a network.
- Give the Network a name, then define its first subnet:
- Subnet Name: a name such as
app-subnet. - IP Version: IPv4 for almost everyone.
- CIDR: the address range, for example
10.0.0.0/24. This gives you 254 usable addresses. - Gateway IP: leave it to be assigned automatically, or set one. Tick Disable Gateway only for an isolated network with no route out.
- DHCP: leave enabled so servers get an address automatically when they boot.
- Allocation Pools (optional): limit which addresses in the range DHCP hands out.
- Subnet Name: a name such as
- Create it.
Use it
When you launch a server, select this network in the Network Config step. Servers on the same network reach each other directly by their private addresses.
For the network to reach the internet, connect it to a Cloud Router. To reach a server on it from outside, give the server a public IP.