Public addresses and egress
Reserve and assign public IP addresses and configure outbound connectivity.
Public addresses provide explicit internet reachability for supported droplets, gateways, and load balancers. Private networking does not allocate a public address automatically.
Address types
A reserved address is an explicit project resource and remains allocated until released. A service-created address follows the service's reviewed retention settings. An egress address belongs to the gateway path used for outbound translation.
These are distinct from an interface's private address. Attaching public ingress does not automatically select that address for every outbound flow, and an egress gateway does not create inbound listeners on private guests.
Available IPv4 and IPv6 options depend on the region. An address belongs to one region and cannot be moved to another by changing its assignment.
Reserve and attach
Open Networking → Public addresses → Reserve, select the region and address family, and review quota and charges. After allocation, choose Attach and select an eligible target in the same project and region.
An address can have one active target. Reassigning it creates an operation that updates routing and detaches the previous target. Existing connections can break during reassignment; application sessions are not migrated with an IP address.
A successful assignment establishes the managed network path. The guest or service must still listen on the intended port, and its firewall must allow the traffic. Verify reachability from an external client.
Outbound access
A private droplet can use an egress gateway without an inbound public assignment. Select the gateway in the network's default route and configure outbound policy. The destination observes the gateway's egress address where translation applies.
An egress gateway is a dependency for package installation, external APIs, and backup paths that use that network. Deploy suitable redundancy when those operations must continue through maintenance. Monitor gateway capacity and connection limits through metrics.
DNS and address changes
Create DNS records only after the address is assigned and the service passes health checks. Releasing an address does not delete external DNS records or third-party allow-list entries. Remove those references before release to avoid pointing clients at an address that can later be reassigned.
Use DNS for managed records and load balancers when multiple droplets should serve one public endpoint.
Detach and release
Detaching removes the current target while retaining the reservation and any reservation charges. Releasing removes the reservation after its dependencies are cleared. A released address is not guaranteed to be available again.
A failed routing update leaves the operation with its applied assignment and pending cleanup. Inspect the current target and operation result before retrying. Do not infer assignment from an outdated DNS answer.