Provision a VPS

Servestead can create one Ubuntu VPS and wait until its public IPv4 address is available. Provisioning does not bootstrap or harden the server automatically.

Provisioning is billable

These commands call real cloud APIs and create billable infrastructure. Delete unused servers in the provider console when you are done testing.

1. Register an SSH Public Key

Generate a key if needed:

bin/servestead keygen

Add the printed public key to Hetzner or DigitalOcean. Keep the provider key name, ID, or fingerprint available for --ssh-key.

2. Provision on Hetzner

export HETZNER_API_TOKEN='...'

bin/servestead provision \
  --provider hetzner \
  --name aegis-01 \
  --ssh-key my-provider-key

Defaults:

Setting	Value
Region	fsn1
Size	cx23
Image	ubuntu-24.04

3. Provision on DigitalOcean

export DIGITALOCEAN_ACCESS_TOKEN='...'

bin/servestead provision \
  --provider digitalocean \
  --name aegis-01 \
  --ssh-key 'provider-key-id-or-fingerprint'

Defaults:

Setting	Value
Region	nyc3
Size	s-1vcpu-1gb
Image	ubuntu-24-04-x64

4. Continue With Setup

After provisioning reports the IPv4 address, continue with:

bin/servestead setup --ip <new-server-ip>

Provider defaults can be overridden with --region, --size, and --image.