How to Configure a Private Network at Vultr

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Introduction

Vultr provides many flexible networking options for your cloud servers. In addition to the public network attached to every Vultr instance, you can configure up to five private networks per location. Private networks allow instances within a location to communicate without exposing the traffic to the public internet.

A few important points about private networks:

Private networks are unmetered and are unique to you. Other customers cannot see traffic on your private networks.
Private networks cannot span locations. For example, server instances in Miami can not see private networks in Dallas.
You can attach a maximum of 126 instances to a single private network, and a maximum of five private networks per location. If you require more, please contact our engineering team.
Private networks are available on all Vultr instances except Bare Metal.
Vultr supports multiple VLANs over a single private network interface with 802.1q tags.
For optimal performance, set the private network adapter MTU to 1450 when configuring the NIC at the OS level.
Private networks do not have DHCP. When deploying a Vultr cloud server with private networking, you must manually configure the private adapters or supply your own DHCP server.

We provide network configuration examples for many popular operating systems, pre-configured for your instance's IP addresses. You can find these by navigating to the settings screen (1) for your server, then selecting IPv4 (2). Follow the networking configuration link (3) to view the configuration examples.

NetworkConfig

You can see generic examples of those configurations here:

How to Create a Private Network

You can create up to 5 private networks per location. Private networks can not communicate between locations, regardless of IP addressing. For example, server instances in Miami can not see private networks in Dallas. To get started:

Navigate to the Network tab.
Select the Private Networks menu item.
Click the blue plus icon.
Choose Add Network.
Select a location.
Add your description.
Accept the suggested IP network address range, or supply your own.

You can use any RFC1918 private address range, 10.0.0.0/8, 172.16.0.0/12, or 192.168.0.0/16. When you attach Vultr products such as Load Balancers to the private network, they will automatically choose non-conflicting addresses in the range you declare here.
Click Add Network.

After you've created a private network, you can assign it to an instance. Use addresses in the same range you chose in step 7 to be compatible with other Vultr products.

You can also segment groups of instances by using multiple private networks.

Assign Private Network to an Instance

Shown below is a portion of the IPv4 Settings screen for an example instance.

If you haven't created a private network, use the Manage (1) link to create one.
To detach a private network from an instance, use the trashcan icon (2).
To add a private network to an instance, select the network (3) and click Attach Network (4).

The server will reboot to activate the network adapter.

NetworkConfig

Manage Private Networks via API

The Vultr API offers several endpoints to manage private networks.

Manage a network

Create a new private network in a region.
Get information about a private network.
Update information for a private network.
Delete a private network.

List all networks

Get a list of all private networks in your account.

Manage private networks for an instance

List the private networks for an Instance.
Attach a private network to an instance.
Detach a private network from an instance.

More about Multiple Networks

If you'd like to see examples demonstrating multiple public as well as private networks at Vultr, see these guides:

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