Free Oracle Cloud server

@finalwebsites sent me info on Oracle’s free cloud resources -

Cloud Free Tier | Oracle

It seems to work decently well and could be a great option for a free test server. There are a couple of things to keep note of if you want to test it out yourself, so I thought I’d share how I went about setting up an instance.

Step 1 - Create an Oracle account

Head to Cloud Free Tier | Oracle and create an account. You will need to provide credit card info to set up the account, but their UI seems to do a decent job of telling you which resource options are free.

Step 2 - add a new VM instance

Make sure to change the image to Ubuntu 20.04

Add an SSH key

Then click Create.

Step 3 - open port 80 and 443

Port 80 and 443 will be closed by default. Assuming you plan to add websites to the server, open port 80 and 443 by clicking on Virtual Cloud Network from the server instance details screen.

Click Security List on the left menu.

Click on the security list

Click Add Ingress Rules

Add the following source and port -

Add the ingress rule for port 80. Do the same process for port 443.

Step 4 - Add custom server in Cleavr.io

In the Oracle dashboard, go to the instance details and copy the public IP address.

In Cleavr, add a new server and select the custom server option.

Paste the IP address in the public IP address field.

Copy the command to run on the Oracle server.

Open your terminal and SSH into the Oracle server. You’ll need to use the ubuntu username.

ssh ubuntu@<server public ip>

After you connect to the server, run:

sudo su

This will switch you to the root user.

Paste the command you copied from Cleavr and run it on the server.


Also, while SSH’d into the server, fix a common iptable issue witih port 443 by running the following commands:

sudo iptables -I INPUT 6 -m state --state NEW -p tcp --dport 443 -j ACCEPT
sudo netfilter-persistent save

Now, go back to Cleavr and continue provisioning the custom server.

Cleavr will complete setting up the server and then you can now manage the Oracle Cloud server via Cleavr.

2 Likes

I removed my server yesterday after 3 days because my test website was never public (host not reachable). Seems like something with the network settings.
The connection between Cleavr and the VPS was okay, except that UFW was automatically disabled after each reboot.
I was also 3 days in contact with their support, but this doesn’t help. It was not the best support experience BTW. The reason that I stopped using there services is the quality of support, the complex cloud panel and the higher price for a VPS.
Sure the first free server (4CPU’s, 24GB RAM and 200GB SSD storage is nog bad) is attractive, but a second server starts at 47 USD. I will keep using Linode and Hetzner :slight_smile:

I also had a problem but only after I rebooted the server. Something then made that server unreachable and any new server also unreachable.

Maybe the moral here is if anyone else wants to use the Oracle free server, is to never reboot the server, only use it for testing, if it becomes unreachable - at least you had a free test server to play with for a time. :rofl:

I am testing it and it works great.
The server was not reachable even after adding the ingress rules.
There is something weird about the iptables. didnt have the time to investigate futher but here is what worked for me:

apt install firewalld
firewall-cmd --zone=public --permanent --add-port=80/tcp
firewall-cmd --reload

Note: After 30 days, if you are using the ampere instance, they will delete the server.
So use it for testing, playing around but dont put anything serious yet when you are in the 30 days trial.
You will need to recreate to enjoy the free server. It wont be deleted when you recreate it after 30days trial.
They mention it in their tos

2 Likes

That’s great! That worked for me as well.

Thanks for sharing!