Security Groups

Security groups control inbound and outbound traffic for compute instances.

They act as virtual firewalls applied at the instance level.

Concepts

Security Group

A security group is a collection of rules that define allowed network traffic.

Each instance can have one or more security groups attached.

Rule Direction

• ingress — incoming traffic to the instance
• egress — outgoing traffic from the instance

Ethertype

• IPv4
• IPv6

Protocol

Common values:

• tcp
• udp
• icmp
• null (all protocols)

How It Works

When you create an instance, you attach one or more security groups.

Each rule inside a security group defines:

• Protocol
• Port range
• Traffic direction
• Optional IP restriction

Example:

• Allow SSH → TCP port 22 ingress
• Allow HTTP → TCP port 80 ingress
• Allow HTTPS → TCP port 443 ingress
• Allow all outbound traffic → egress, protocol null

Endpoints

• List Security Groups

Authentication

All security group endpoints require an API key:

x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY

See Authentication for examples in cURL, Node.js, Python, and Go.