Question
Can we have better IP whitelist management?
- Posted on October 23, 2024
- Networking
Asked by BigDarkBlueJellyfish
When whitelisting droplets or databases, we have the ability to add multipe IP addresses to whitelist.
When there’s only a handful, that’s fine, but if we have a complex network with several IPs, internal and external, the list of whitelisted IPs is just that. A list of IPs.
It would be amazing if we could add a ‘name’ to an IP so we can see what each IP referrs to. We have this documented - but instead of switching out to external documentation back and forth, it would be great if this was part of the IP management screen.
This helps us ensure that redundant IPs are services can be removed if needs be. Additional points if there was an audit trail for the user that added and removed these IPs.
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You could tag your droplets based on their functions (e.g.,
web-server,database,staging) to get a quick overview. However, as you’ve noted, this doesn’t cover external IP addresses, which would still need to be tracked separately.For external IP tracking, here are a few tips to consider in the meantime:
Centralize IP Documentation: Use tools like Airtable or Google Sheets to document external IP addresses and their purposes. With column-based views, you can categorize IPs by purpose, status, or location, allowing easy filtering and updates.
Consider Local Firewalls: If you manage a server-side firewall (like UFW on Ubuntu), you could name rules for specific IPs. For example, using comments like
ufw allow from 1.2.3.4 comment 'Office VPN'can help track rules locally.Automate Documentation Updates: Using scripts to pull IP data and update documentation might be helpful if you’re frequently making changes. Tools like Ansible can be helpful in both setting up rules and creating logs to track these actions.
Hope that this helps!
Hey,
Great idea, sounds like it’d be super useful!
The best thing to do to get your voice heard regarding this would be to head over to our Product Ideas board and post a new idea, including as much information as possible for what you’d like to see implemented.
In the meantime, you might want to check out using tags for your Droplets to help organize them and keep track of what’s what. You can find more about how to use tags here:
That would still not help with external IP addresses though as you’ve mentioned.
Hope that helps!
- Bobby