Getting Started

This guide walks you through creating your first cloud compute instance on HostUp Cloud — from project setup to your first SSH connection.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, make sure you have:

• A verified HostUp Cloud account (sign up if you haven't)
• KYC verification completed (verify identity)
• A funded wallet or valid payment method on file (billing)

Step 1: Create a Project

Projects are the top-level container for all your cloud resources — instances, volumes, SSH keys, networks, and firewalls are all scoped to a project.

1. Log in to the Console
2. Click New Project in the sidebar
3. Enter a project name (e.g., "Production", "Staging", "Personal Lab")
4. Click Create

Step 2: Choose a Location (Region)

Click Create Instance inside your project. The first step is selecting a deployment region.

Each region is identified by a flag and a code (e.g., in-blr for Bangalore, eu-fra for Frankfurt). Choose the region closest to your users for the lowest latency.

Step 3: Choose an Image

Select the operating system for your instance. Images are displayed as grouped cards organized by distribution family, each with a version dropdown.

Available Distributions

• LTS tags indicate Long Term Support versions — recommended for production
• EOL tags indicate End of Life versions — avoid for new deployments
• Use the version dropdown on each card to select the specific release

Step 4: Choose a Plan

Select the compute plan that matches your workload. Plans are split into two categories:

Shared vCPU

vCPU cores are shared across tenants. Best for development, staging, web apps, and low-to-medium traffic workloads.

Dedicated vCPU

Dedicated cores with guaranteed performance. Best for production databases, CI/CD, and compute-intensive workloads.

See the Cloud Compute overview for the full plan list with hourly rates and traffic allowances.

Step 5: Configure Networking

IPv4

Every instance gets one public IPv4 address by default. This is included at no extra cost.

IPv6

Toggle IPv6 to assign a /64 block to your instance. IPv6 is free and recommended for all new deployments.

Private Network

If you have an existing private network, select it from the dropdown to attach your instance. Private network traffic is free and stays within the datacenter.

Step 6: Authentication

Choose how you'll authenticate to your instance:

SSH Key (Recommended)

Select an existing SSH key or upload a new one. Your public key will be injected into the instance during provisioning, allowing passwordless login.

# Generate a new SSH key pair (if you don't have one)
ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "your-email@example.com"

# Copy your public key
cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub

Upload the public key contents in the console, or manage keys from the SSH Keys page.

Root Password

Alternatively, set a root password. The password must be at least 8 characters and include uppercase, lowercase, and numbers.

Step 7: Advanced Options (Optional)

Hostname

Set a custom hostname for your instance (e.g., web-01, db-prod). If left blank, a hostname is auto-generated from the instance name.

Labels

Add key-value labels to organize and filter your instances (e.g., env:production, team:backend, project:api). See Labels & Tags for more.

Cloud-Init User Data

Paste a cloud-init script to run automatically on first boot. This is useful for installing packages, configuring services, or running setup scripts without manual SSH access.

#cloud-config
packages:
  - nginx
  - certbot
  - python3-certbot-nginx

runcmd:
  - systemctl enable nginx
  - systemctl start nginx

See Cloud-Init for detailed examples and supported directives.

Step 8: Deploy

Review your configuration summary and click Create Instance. Deployment typically completes in approximately 10 seconds.

During provisioning, the platform:

1. Allocates compute resources (CPU, RAM, disk) on the selected node
2. Clones the selected OS image to the instance's NVMe storage
3. Configures networking (public IP, IPv6, private network if selected)
4. Injects your SSH key or sets the root password
5. Executes cloud-init user data (if provided)
6. Starts the instance

The instance status will transition from Creating to Running once provisioning completes.

Step 9: Connect to Your Instance

Once the instance is running, connect via SSH using the public IPv4 address shown on the instance detail page:

# Connect with SSH key (default)
ssh root@203.0.113.42

# Connect with a specific key file
ssh -i ~/.ssh/id_ed25519 root@203.0.113.42

If you set a root password instead of an SSH key:

ssh root@203.0.113.42
# Enter your root password when prompted

First Steps After Login

Once connected, it's good practice to:

# Update system packages
apt update && apt upgrade -y   # Ubuntu/Debian
dnf update -y                  # Rocky/Alma/CentOS

# Set the timezone
timedatectl set-timezone Asia/Kolkata

# Create a non-root user (recommended)
adduser deploy
usermod -aG sudo deploy

# Set up SSH key for the new user
mkdir -p /home/deploy/.ssh
cp ~/.ssh/authorized_keys /home/deploy/.ssh/
chown -R deploy:deploy /home/deploy/.ssh

What's Next

• Managing Instances — Power controls, monitoring, resize, rebuild
• Networking — Configure firewalls, floating IPs, private networks
• Storage — Attach block storage volumes, create snapshots
• SSH Keys — Manage SSH keys across your project
• Cloud-Init — Automate instance setup with user data scripts
• API Keys — Manage instances programmatically via the REST API