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Cloud Providers ​

Norn includes Terraform modules for provisioning K3s cluster nodes across multiple cloud providers.

Supported providers ​

ProviderModuleStrengths
DigitalOceaninfra/terraform/digitalocean/Simple pricing, good API, included monitoring
Hetznerinfra/terraform/hetzner/Best price/performance in EU, ARM64 support
Vultrinfra/terraform/vultr/Global regions, bare metal options

Architecture ​

Nodes from different providers join the same K3s cluster via Tailscale mesh networking.

Cluster management ​

bash
# Initialize a new cluster
norn cluster init --provider hetzner --region fsn1 --size cx22

# Add nodes
norn cluster add --provider digitalocean --region nyc1 --size s-2vcpu-4gb
norn cluster add --provider vultr --region ewr --size vc2-2c-4gb

# List nodes
norn cluster nodes

# Get kubeconfig
norn cluster kubeconfig > ~/.kube/config

# Estimate costs
norn cluster cost

# Remove a node
norn cluster remove <node-id>

# Destroy the entire cluster
norn cluster destroy

Node provisioning ​

Each node is provisioned with cloud-init that:

  1. Installs K3s (server or agent role)
  2. Installs Tailscale for mesh networking
  3. Configures firewall rules
  4. Joins the cluster using the server's Tailscale IP

The k3s-node Terraform module (infra/terraform/k3s-node/) handles the common provisioning logic, while provider-specific modules handle VM creation.

Provider setup ​

DigitalOcean ​

bash
export DIGITALOCEAN_TOKEN=<your-token>

Hetzner ​

bash
export HCLOUD_TOKEN=<your-token>

Vultr ​

bash
export VULTR_API_KEY=<your-key>

Cost optimization ​

  • Hetzner CAX (ARM64) instances offer the best price/performance for most workloads
  • DigitalOcean basic droplets are competitive for US regions
  • Mix providers for geographic distribution and redundancy
  • Use norn cluster cost to estimate monthly costs