Introduction
Why does a Pi Colocation not have a dedicated public IP? Two reasons:
- IPs are scarce, at least in version 4, which is still what most users want. As a hoster, we certainly have several public IPs available, but unfortunately by no means in the size dimension that one is used to from other cloud giants. A certain thriftiness is therefore mandatory at the current time.
- Network administration and the associated security is costly. Clearly defined restrictions, such as the avoidance of dedicated public IP addresses, bring disadvantages in terms of access on the one hand, and advantages in terms of costs on the other.
In sum, we have therefore decided not to allocate public IPs, but to implement addressing via TCP ports and to pass on the resulting price advantage to our customers.
Accessing the Pi
Instead of using a public IP the Pi is accessed by combining a public hostname with dedicated TCP ports. The hostname points to one of the ExaMesh gateways and is assigned to the colocation along with the available TCP ports in the booking process.
For an example, see the documentation for configuring the network on the Pi.
Pros
Simplicity and thereby: Cost reduction.
And we pass this on in full: To our customers!
Cons
Many applications use standard ports, e.g. the HTTP protocol 80 or 443. Unfortunately, these ports cannot be passed through to the colocations. Instead, the assigned numbers are always outside the so-called Well-Known-Ports, e.g. 9002 could be one of them. So a non-public web service (like Jupyter) can be configured accordingly on the Pi and then addressed by calling https://oprema.exame.sh:9002. Those who do not need standard ports can enjoy the advantage of the low pricing model without restriction.
