For on-premises node should we buy a VPS or a dedicated server that provides us with a private IP CIDR? Do VPS providers even offer the private IP feature?

I'm trying to set up a **hybrid EKS cluster** using a VPS I purchased from **SSD Nodes**, but I'm facing critical issues related to private IP networking and CNI stability. Here's a detailed breakdown:

---

### 📌 Setup Context

* I am building a **hybrid EKS setup**, where my **on-prem node (VPS)** should join an Amazon EKS control plane.
* As part of the cluster creation, EKS requires two **non-overlapping private CIDRs**:

* `remoteNodeNetworkCIDR`
* `remotePodNetworkCIDR`
* I purchased a VPS from **SSD Nodes**, which provided a **dedicated public IP**, but no private IP.

---

### 🚨 Issue Faced

* When I run `nodeadm init -c file://nodeConfig.yaml`, I receive the error:

```
The IP address "X.X.X.X" is not within the configured remoteNodeNetworkCIDR.
```

(Where `X.X.X.X` is the public IP of the VPS.)

* To bypass this, I ran:

```
nodeadm init --skip-node-validation
```

This did register the node with the EKS control plane successfully.

---

### 🧪 What I Tried

1. **Manually assigned a private IP** (from the remoteNodeNetworkCIDR range) to the VPS using `ip addr add`, but the system still uses the public IP for outbound traffic and cluster communication.
2. Set up a **site-to-site VPN** using **StrongSwan**; both tunnel endpoints show `"UP"` status.
3. Installed various CNIs (**Cilium**, **Calico**, **Flannel**). However, the pods keep **crashing and restarting**.
4. Only `kube-proxy` is in a **READY** state; **CoreDNS** fails to come up due to CNI failures.

---

### 🤔 Root Cause Suspected

It appears the issue is that the VPS **lacks proper private IP support**. Even after assigning one manually, the node continues to **use its public IP**, which is incompatible with the expectations of hybrid EKS networking (specifically the VPN and pod routing logic). This is likely why the CNIs fail.

---

### ❓ My Questions

1. **Did I make the wrong choice** by purchasing a VPS instead of a true dedicated server that provides private IP ranges?
2. Is there any way to configure a VPS to **use custom private IPs properly** for internal routing and communication?
3. If not, should I purchase from a provider that **offers true private IP allocation** (RFC1918 range) and allows proper control over networking?

* If yes, could you recommend such providers?
4. Despite VPN tunnel status being "UP", is it possible that the **lack of private IP support** on this VPS is the core reason why **CNI pods are failing**?

---

### 📌 Summary

Although I could register the node using `--skip-node-validation`, **CNI pods crash due to networking/routing issues**, likely caused by the node’s **reliance on its public IP** in a setup that expects **private CIDR-based routing**. I'm trying to understand whether this is a **fundamental limitation of the VPS** I’m using, or if it can be resolved via configuration.

Would appreciate your guidance.

TIRED OF HAVING MULTIPLE CALLS WITH AWS SUPPORT TEAM. They themselves are not aware of how this thing works.

Start with nodeConfig.yaml and the nodeadm init validation around remoteNodeNetworkCIDR and remotePodNetworkCIDR. Then inspect the StrongSwan tunnel, node routing, and Cilium, Calico, and Flannel pod logs to determine whether the VPS networking meets EKS Hybrid Nodes requirements. Done means identifying the supported network configuration or documenting the provider limitation.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.