Deploy Your First Cloud Server

Cloud Server Deployment Flow

This guide walks you through deploying your first cloud server using the LightYear control panel. By the end you will have a running server with a public IP address that you can connect to via SSH.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, make sure you have:

• A LightYear account with a funded wallet (minimum $5.00)
• An SSH key pair generated on your local machine
• A terminal application (Terminal on macOS/Linux, PowerShell or Windows Terminal on Windows)

[!TIP] If you do not have an SSH key pair yet, see Generate and Upload SSH Keys before continuing.

Step 1 — Log In to the Control Panel

1. Navigate to app.lightyear.host and sign in with your account credentials.
2. From the dashboard, click Deploy Server in the top navigation bar or the quick-action button on the home screen.

Step 2 — Choose a Server Type

LightYear offers three server types. Select the one that matches your workload:

For this guide, select Cloud Compute.

Step 3 — Select a Region

Choose the data center region closest to your end users to minimise latency.

[!NOTE] All regions include full redundant networking. Your data does not replicate across regions automatically — you must configure backups or snapshots separately.

Step 4 — Choose a Plan

Select a compute plan based on your CPU, RAM, and storage requirements. For a basic web server, the 1 vCPU / 1 GB RAM / 25 GB SSD plan is sufficient.

Step 5 — Select an Operating System

LightYear supports the following OS families:

• Ubuntu 20.04, 22.04, 24.04 LTS
• Debian 11, 12
• CentOS Stream 9
• Rocky Linux 9
• AlmaLinux 9
• Windows Server 2022 (additional licensing cost)

Select Ubuntu 22.04 LTS for this guide.

Step 6 — Add Your SSH Key

1. In the SSH Keys section, click Add SSH Key.
2. Paste the contents of your public key file (~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub).
3. Give the key a memorable label and click Save.

[!WARNING] Never paste your private key (id_ed25519 without the .pub extension). The private key must remain on your local machine only.

Step 7 — Configure Server Details

• Hostname: Enter a descriptive hostname such as web-server-01. Hostnames must be lowercase alphanumeric with hyphens only.
• Label: An optional human-readable label visible only in the control panel.
• Backups: Enable automatic daily backups (+20% of server cost) if this server will hold important data.

Step 8 — Deploy

Review your configuration summary and click Deploy Now. Provisioning typically completes in 30–90 seconds.

Step 9 — Connect via SSH

Once the server status shows Running, copy the public IP address from the server detail page.

$ssh root@YOUR_SERVER_IP

Replace YOUR_SERVER_IP with the IP address shown in the control panel. You should see a welcome banner similar to:

Welcome to Ubuntu 22.04.4 LTS (GNU/Linux 5.15.0-107-generic x86_64)

System information as of Thu Apr 24 00:00:00 UTC 2026

  System load:  0.0               Processes:             98
  Usage of /:   4.2% of 24.52GB   Users logged in:       0
  Memory usage: 5%                IPv4 address for eth0: 45.77.x.x

Next Steps

Now that your server is running, consider:

• Securing Your Server with a Firewall
• Setting Up a Non-Root User
• Attaching Block Storage