Chapter 10: Launch a Free Tier Instance (AMD shape Always Free)

Oracle offers a great Always Free tier that includes compute instances — perfect for small self-hosted projects like ours!

We’ll now create a VM using the free AMD shape, with just enough power to run our Nginx Proxy Manager.

Instance Specs:

• Shape: VM.Standard.E2.1.Micro
• CPU: 1 OCPU
• RAM: 1 GB
• Cost: $0 — Always Free eligible!

How to Create the Free Tier Instance

1. Go to Compute > Instances
2. Click "Create Instance"
3. Name your instance (e.g., debian-nginx)
4. Under Image and shape:
   • Click "Edit"
   • Choose Custom Image (select your Debian image created earlier)
   • Click "Change Shape"
   • Filter by: "Virtual Machine" > "E2"
   • Select: VM.Standard.E2.1.Micro (Always Free eligible)

5. Configure networking and add your SSH public key

6. Click "Create"

Wait a moment while the instance is provisioned. Once it's in the Running state — you're good to go!

Now you can connect to your instance using SSH:

📝 Note: The default user might be debian

Optional: Connect Using PuTTY (Windows Users)

If you’re on Windows, the easiest way to connect to your new Debian instance is using PuTTY, a free SSH client.

Oracle gives you a private key in .pem format, and PuTTY needs a .ppk key.
So we’ll need to convert the key first.

Step 1: Convert .pem to .ppk with PuTTYgen

1. Open PuTTYgen (it comes with PuTTY)
2. Click "Load" and select your .pem file (you may need to switch file type to All Files)
3. Click "Save private key" – save it as my-key.ppk (you can skip the passphrase for now)

Step 2: Connect to Your Instance with PuTTY

1. Open PuTTY
2. In Host Name (or IP address), enter:

debian@your-instance-public-ip

1. In the left panel, go to:
   Connection > SSH > Auth >Credentials
2. Click "Browse" and select the .ppk file you saved earlier
3. Click "Open" to connect

You should now see a terminal window connected to your Debian instance!
You’re officially inside your cloud server.