With credit on the account, open Deploy in the sidebar (/client/products/virtual-servers/).
1. Pick a family and a size
General Compute is the default ladder, gc.pico through gc.4xlarge, with
a 2.5 Gbps port. Network Optimized (no.*) is the same hardware with a
10 Gbps port, for firewalls, proxies, VPN concentrators and anything else where
throughput is the constraint rather than CPU.
Sizes, specs and live rates are on Pricing. Do not size for the worst hour of the year: you can resize up later without rebuilding.
Building a firewall or router VM?
no.appliance exists for exactly that: 1 vCPU, 512 MB RAM, 10 GB disk, and
a 10 Gbps port. See pfSense, OPNsense and VyOS.
gc.pico is the same 512 MB envelope on the 2.5 Gbps General Compute port.
2. Pick an operating system
The image list on the order form is the live list of what this region can
deploy, so it is the only accurate source. The Client API exposes the same list
at GET /api/v1/images?plan=<slug>, and availability is per plan because an
image with a large minimum disk is filtered out of a small one.
If you need an image or ISO that is not offered, open a ticket and ask.
3. Name it
Label is what you see in the portal. Hostname is what the guest calls itself. Both accept letters, digits, dots and hyphens, and must start with a letter or digit.
4. Choose the addressing
A public IPv4 address is included and on by default. You can instead deploy private only, which has no public address and no path to the internet at all: you reach it from the browser console or from another of your servers on the same private network.
Addressing is fixed at deploy
You cannot add a public IPv4 address to a private-only server later, or take one away after deployment. Decide before you confirm. See Public and private addressing.
5. Confirm
An hourly order is $0.00 upfront, so there is nothing to pay at this step and provisioning starts immediately. Most servers are running in under 60 seconds.
Two things arrive when it finishes: the server's page in Instances shows the IPv4 address and status, and an email arrives with the address and the generated root password.
The root password email is sent once
It is not sent again. The password is also readable on the server's page in the portal while you are signed in as the owner, and nowhere else. Move it into a password manager, then replace it with an SSH key.