Cloud Server quick start: from sign-up to your first SSH login

A new Cloud Server goes from an empty order to a running operating system in a couple of minutes. This guide walks through the whole path: account, billing, choosing a region and plan, first login, and the short checklist that makes the server safe to build on.

Before you start

You need three things:

• An email address for your account.
• A payment method. Save a card in Billing, or top up prepaid credit, which is used first.
• An SSH client. macOS and Linux include one, and Windows 10 and 11 ship OpenSSH in PowerShell and Windows Terminal.

1. Pick a product line and plan

All Cloud Servers run on DDR4 ECC memory and include DDoS protection. The three lines differ in CPU and storage:

For a small website, API or staging box, an entry-level Cloud plan is plenty. Pick Turbo when you need CPU time that is never shared, such as build runners or busy databases. Full specs are on Cloud Servers and Pricing.

2. Choose a region

Put the server close to the people who use it. Infraista runs servers in Sofia (our main data centre), Nuremberg, London, Los Angeles, Dallas and Utah. See Locations for what each site offers.

3. Create the server

In the console, create a new Cloud Server and choose:

1. Region from the list above.
2. Plan from the line you picked.
3. Operating system. Ubuntu 22.04 is a sensible default for Linux workloads; Ubuntu 20.04, Windows Server 2022 and Windows Server 2019 images are also available.

Confirm the order. Usage is metered by the hour and appears on one monthly invoice, so a test server you delete after an afternoon costs only the hours it ran.

When provisioning finishes, the server page shows its public IP address and its state, with Start, Stop and Reboot controls.

4. Log in over SSH

Copy the IP from the server page and connect as root:

ssh [email protected]

For the first login, open the server in the console and choose Reset root password. The new password is shown once, so copy it somewhere safe before closing the dialog. When you connect, SSH asks you to confirm the server's fingerprint: type yes, then paste the password. Right after that, install your SSH key (below) so you never need the password again.

5. The first five things to do

Update the system

apt update && apt upgrade -y

Set a proper hostname

Use a fully qualified name. Mail software in particular misbehaves with a bare hostname, and changing it later can mean reissuing certificates.

hostnamectl set-hostname server1.example.com

Add your SSH key and turn off password login

If you logged in with a password, copy your key across from your own machine:

ssh-copy-id [email protected]

Then, once key login works in a second terminal, disable passwords in /etc/ssh/sshd_config:

PasswordAuthentication no

systemctl reload ssh

Turn on a firewall

Allow SSH first, then enable the firewall, or you will lock yourself out:

ufw allow OpenSSHufw allow 80,443/tcpufw enable

Keep security updates coming

apt install -y unattended-upgradesdpkg-reconfigure -plow unattended-upgrades

If you cannot connect

• Connection times out. Provisioning may still be finishing. Check the server state in the console and try again in a minute.
• Permission denied. The wrong key is being offered, or the password is wrong. Reset the root password from the server page and try again.
• You locked yourself out with a firewall rule. Use Open Console on the server page. The browser console does not depend on SSH or the network. See Locked out of your server?.

Next steps

• Attach a Floating IP so you can replace the server later without changing DNS.
• Move your database to a Managed Database instead of running it on the server.
• Questions? Our team is on Support 24/7, or email [email protected].