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DigitalOcean Networking Services

Complete documentation for DigitalOcean's networking services, covering DNS management, load balancing, VPC networking, security, and multi-cloud integration.

📚 Documentation Index

Core Networking Services

  1. Networking Overview
  2. Introduction to DigitalOcean networking
  3. Service comparison and architecture

  4. Getting started guide

  5. Domains & DNS Management

  6. Free DNS hosting
  7. Record types (A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, TXT, SRV, NS, CAA)
  8. Global anycast network
  9. DNSSEC support

  10. API and CLI management

  11. Reserved IPs (Floating IPs)

  12. Static IP addresses
  13. Instant remapping and failover
  14. High availability configurations
  15. Automated failover scripts

  16. Use cases and best practices

  17. Load Balancers

  18. Traffic distribution algorithms
  19. SSL/TLS termination
  20. Health checks and monitoring
  21. Sticky sessions
  22. HTTP/2 and TCP support

  23. Blue-green and canary deployments

  24. Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)

  25. Private network isolation
  26. CIDR block planning
  27. Multi-VPC architectures
  28. Cross-resource connectivity

  29. Security best practices

  30. Cloud Firewalls

  31. Stateful firewall rules
  32. Tag-based management
  33. Inbound and outbound rules
  34. Multi-tier security

  35. Protocol support (TCP, UDP, ICMP)

  36. PTR Records (Reverse DNS)

  37. Email server configuration
  38. Reverse DNS lookup
  39. SPF, DKIM, DMARC integration
  40. Deliverability improvement

  41. Testing and verification

  42. Multi-Cloud Integration

  43. VPN connectivity (IPsec, WireGuard, OpenVPN)
  44. Hybrid cloud architectures
  45. AWS, Azure, GCP integration
  46. BGP routing
  47. High availability VPN

🏗 Architecture Patterns

Three-Tier Web Application

Internet
   │
   ├─> DNS (Domains)
   │
   ├─> Reserved IP
   │
   ├─> Load Balancer (SSL Termination)
   │
   ├─> Web Tier (VPC: 10.10.1.0/24)
   │   └─> Cloud Firewall: Allow 443, 80
   │
   ├─> App Tier (VPC: 10.10.2.0/24)
   │   └─> Cloud Firewall: Allow 8080 from web tier
   │
   └─> Database Tier (VPC: 10.10.3.0/24)
       └─> Cloud Firewall: Allow 5432 from app tier

High Availability Setup

DNS → Reserved IP → Load Balancer
                        │
        ┌───────────────┌───────────────┐
        │               │               │
    Droplet 1       Droplet 2       Droplet 3
    (Healthy)       (Healthy)       (Failed)
        │               │               
        └───────────────┌───────────────┘
                        │
                    VPC Network
                        │
                   Database Cluster

Multi-Cloud Architecture

On-Premises ←VPN→ DigitalOcean ←VPN→ AWS
                      ↓
                     VPN
                      ↓
                     GCP

🚀 Quick Start Guides

Deploy a Secure Web Application

# 1. Create VPC
doctl vpcs create --name prod-vpc --region nyc3 --ip-range 10.10.0.0/16

# 2. Create Droplets in VPC
doctl compute droplet create web-1 web-2 web-3 \
  --region nyc3 \
  --size s-1vcpu-1gb \
  --image ubuntu-22-04-x64 \
  --vpc-uuid <vpc-uuid> \
  --tag-names web

# 3. Create Cloud Firewall
doctl compute firewall create \
  --name web-firewall \
  --inbound-rules "protocol:tcp,ports:443,address:0.0.0.0/0" \
  --tag-names web

# 4. Create Load Balancer
doctl compute load-balancer create \
  --name web-lb \
  --region nyc3 \
  --forwarding-rules entry_protocol:https,entry_port:443,target_protocol:http,target_port:80 \
  --tag-name web

# 5. Configure DNS
doctl compute domain records create example.com \
  --record-type A \
  --record-name www \
  --record-data <load-balancer-ip>

Set Up Email Server

# 1. Create Droplet
doctl compute droplet create mail-server \
  --region nyc3 \
  --size s-2vcpu-2gb \
  --image ubuntu-22-04-x64

# 2. Create DNS records
# A record: mail.example.com → <droplet-ip>
# MX record: example.com → mail.example.com
# SPF record: "v=spf1 ip4:<droplet-ip> ~all"

# 3. Set PTR record (via control panel)
# PTR: <droplet-ip> → mail.example.com

# 4. Configure firewall
doctl compute firewall create \
  --name mail-firewall \
  --inbound-rules "protocol:tcp,ports:25,address:0.0.0.0/0 protocol:tcp,ports:587,address:0.0.0.0/0"

Connect to AWS via VPN

# 1. Create VPN Gateway Droplet
doctl compute droplet create vpn-gateway \
  --region nyc3 \
  --size s-2vcpu-2gb \
  --image ubuntu-22-04-x64

# 2. Install StrongSwan
ssh root@<droplet-ip>
apt-get update && apt-get install -y strongswan

# 3. Configure IPsec (see Multi-Cloud Integration guide)

# 4. Configure AWS VPN Gateway (see AWS Integration section)

# 5. Test connectivity
ping <aws-private-ip>

🔧 Common Configurations

Web Server Firewall

{
  "inbound_rules": [
    {"protocol": "tcp", "ports": "443", "sources": {"addresses": ["0.0.0.0/0"]}},
    {"protocol": "tcp", "ports": "80", "sources": {"addresses": ["0.0.0.0/0"]}},
    {"protocol": "tcp", "ports": "22", "sources": {"addresses": ["YOUR_IP/32"]}}
  ],
  "outbound_rules": [
    {"protocol": "tcp", "ports": "all", "destinations": {"addresses": ["0.0.0.0/0"]}}
  ]
}

Database Firewall

{
  "inbound_rules": [
    {"protocol": "tcp", "ports": "5432", "sources": {"tags": ["web", "app"]}},
    {"protocol": "tcp", "ports": "22", "sources": {"addresses": ["YOUR_IP/32"]}}
  ],
  "outbound_rules": [
    {"protocol": "tcp", "ports": "443", "destinations": {"addresses": ["0.0.0.0/0"]}}
  ]
}

Load Balancer Configuration

{
  "forwarding_rules": [
    {
      "entry_protocol": "https",
      "entry_port": 443,
      "target_protocol": "http",
      "target_port": 80,
      "certificate_id": "cert-id"
    }
  ],
  "health_check": {
    "protocol": "http",
    "port": 80,
    "path": "/health",
    "check_interval_seconds": 10,
    "response_timeout_seconds": 5,
    "healthy_threshold": 3,
    "unhealthy_threshold": 3
  }
}

📊 Service Comparison

Service Use Case Cost Key Feature
Domains DNS management Free Global anycast
Reserved IPs Static addressing Free (assigned) Instant remapping
Load Balancers Traffic distribution $12/month SSL termination
VPC Network isolation Free Private networking
Cloud Firewalls Security Free Tag-based rules
PTR Records Email servers Free Reverse DNS
VPN Multi-cloud Droplet cost Encrypted tunnels

🎯 Use Cases

E-Commerce Platform

  • Load Balancers for web tier
  • VPC for secure backend communication
  • Cloud Firewalls for multi-tier security
  • Reserved IPs for high availability
  • DNS for domain management

SaaS Application

  • Multi-region deployment with VPN
  • VPC per customer for isolation
  • Load Balancers with SSL termination
  • Cloud Firewalls for tenant separation
  • Monitoring and health checks

Email Service

  • PTR records for deliverability
  • Reserved IPs for consistent sender reputation
  • Cloud Firewalls for SMTP security
  • DNS for SPF, DKIM, DMARC
  • Backup MX servers

Hybrid Cloud

  • VPN to on-premises datacenter
  • VPC for cloud resources
  • Multi-cloud integration (AWS, Azure, GCP)
  • Secure encrypted tunnels
  • BGP routing for dynamic failover

🔒 Security Best Practices

  1. Network Segmentation
  2. Use VPC for isolation
  3. Separate environments (prod, staging, dev)

  4. Implement least privilege access

  5. Firewall Configuration

  6. Default deny all
  7. Allow only necessary ports
  8. Use tags for dynamic management

  9. Regular rule audits

  10. Encryption

  11. SSL/TLS for all public services
  12. VPN for cross-cloud communication
  13. Strong cipher suites

  14. Certificate management

  15. Monitoring

  16. Health checks on all services
  17. Log aggregation
  18. Alerting for anomalies

  19. Regular security audits

  20. High Availability

  21. Multiple availability zones
  22. Redundant VPN tunnels
  23. Load balancer health checks
  24. Automated failover

📈 Performance Optimization

DNS

  • Use appropriate TTL values
  • Leverage anycast network
  • Implement DNSSEC
  • Monitor query performance

Load Balancers

  • Enable HTTP/2
  • Configure sticky sessions appropriately
  • Optimize health check intervals
  • Use least connections algorithm

VPC

  • Plan CIDR blocks carefully
  • Use private IPs for internal communication
  • Minimize cross-region traffic
  • Implement proper routing

VPN

  • Choose appropriate encryption
  • Use modern protocols (IKEv2, WireGuard)
  • Implement BGP for dynamic routing
  • Monitor bandwidth and latency

🛠 Troubleshooting

DNS Issues

dig example.com
nslookup example.com
host example.com

Connectivity Issues

ping <ip-address>
traceroute <ip-address>
nc -zv <ip-address> <port>

Firewall Issues

doctl compute firewall list
sudo ufw status
sudo iptables -L -n

VPN Issues

sudo ipsec status
sudo wg show
sudo journalctl -u strongswan-starter

📚 Additional Resources

Official Documentation

Community Resources

Tools

🀝 Contributing

Found an error or want to improve the documentation? Contributions are welcome!

📝 License

This documentation is provided as-is for educational purposes.

Last Updated: January 2026

Version: 1.0

Maintained by: DevOps Documentation Team