Quick Start

Deploy your first virtual machine in 5 minutes. Follow this step-by-step guide to get started with ServersCamp.

Overview

Welcome to ServersCamp! This guide will walk you through deploying your first virtual machine. Here's what we'll do:

1
Sign Up Create your account via GitHub or Google
2
Create Router Set up your internet gateway
3
Create Network Define your private network (VPC)
4
Attach Network Connect network to router
5
Create VM Launch your virtual machine
6
Connect SSH into your server
Free Tier Available
New accounts get a free instance for 6 months: 1 vCPU, 512 MB RAM, 10 GB NVMe storage.

Step 1: Sign Up

ServersCamp uses passwordless authentication for security. Your first login creates your account automatically.

Login Options

  • GitHub — Click "Continue with GitHub" to authenticate
  • Google — Click "Continue with Google" to authenticate
After First Login
Once authenticated, you can optionally set a password or continue using passwordless login. With passwordless login, we send a one-time PIN to your email.

Dashboard Overview

After logging in, you'll see your dashboard with:

  • Total Resources — Number of VMs, routers, networks, and buckets
  • Active — Currently running resources
  • Routers — Your internet gateways
  • Storage Buckets — S3-compatible object storage

Step 2: Create Router

A router is your gateway to the internet. It provides public IPv4 and IPv6 addresses and routes traffic between your private networks and the internet.

Create Your First Router

  1. Navigate to Routers in the sidebar
  2. Click Create Router
  3. Enter a name for your router (optional)
  4. Click Create

Your router will be created with public IP addresses assigned automatically:

  • IPv4 — e.g., 194.110.174.xxx
  • IPv6 — e.g., 2a01:ea05::xxxx:xxxx:xxxx:xxxx
Why Do I Need a Router?
The router acts as a NAT gateway and firewall for your private networks. VMs connect to the internet through the router's public IPs.

Step 3: Create Network

Networks are private VPCs (Virtual Private Clouds) where your VMs run. Each network has its own IP address range (CIDR).

Create Your First Network

  1. Navigate to Networks in the sidebar
  2. Click Create Network
  3. Enter a CIDR for your network (e.g., 10.0.0.0/24)
  4. Click Create

Allowed CIDR Ranges

You can use any private IP range:

RangeDescriptionExample
10.0.0.0/8Class A private10.0.0.0/24
172.16.0.0/12Class B private172.31.0.0/24
192.168.0.0/16Class C private192.168.1.0/24
Subnet Size
A /24 network gives you 254 usable IP addresses — plenty for most use cases. Use a smaller prefix like /16 for larger deployments.

Step 4: Attach Network to Router

Connect your network to the router so VMs can access the internet.

Attach the Network

  1. Go to Networks
  2. Click on your network or the ⋯ menu
  3. Select Attach to Router
  4. Choose your router from the dropdown
  5. Click Attach

Once attached, your network's status will show the connected router. VMs in this network can now:

  • Access the internet through the router
  • Receive public IP addresses (optional per VM)
  • Communicate with VMs in other networks attached to the same router

Step 5: Create Virtual Machine

Now let's launch your first VM!

Create Your VM

  1. Navigate to Virtual Machines in the sidebar
  2. Click Create VM
  3. Fill in the configuration form
  4. Review the price estimate
  5. Click Create

Configuration Options

Name

Optional display name for your VM. If left empty, a random name will be generated (e.g., silly-muffin-52).

Operating System

Select your OS from available templates:

  • Ubuntu 25.04 LTS, 24.04 LTS, 22.04 LTS
  • Debian 12, 11
  • More coming soon...

VM Class

Choose your CPU and RAM configuration:

TypeBest ForCPU Model
Burst Development, testing, low-traffic workloads Shared CPU with burstable performance
Standard Production, consistent workloads Dedicated CPU cores

Disk Size & Storage Class

Configure your NVMe storage:

  • Size — 10 GB to 500 GB
  • Storage Class — Determines IOPS and throughput

Network Class

Choose your bandwidth tier:

  • Baseline — 100 Mbit, 5 TB included traffic
  • Standard — 1 Gbit, 20 TB included traffic

Network

Select the network you created earlier. Your VM will receive a private IP from this network's CIDR range.

SSH Key (Recommended)

Select an existing SSH key or generate a new one. SSH key authentication is more secure than passwords.

  • Upload existing — Use your ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
  • Generate new — We'll create a key pair for you

Root Password (Optional)

Set a password for the scamp user. You can use both SSH key and password.

Price Calculator
The form shows real-time price estimates as you configure your VM. Prices are calculated hourly but displayed as monthly estimates (730 hours).

Step 6: Connect to Your VM

Your VM is ready! Here's how to connect.

Find Your VM's IP Address

  1. Go to Virtual Machines
  2. Click on your VM to see details
  3. Copy the Public IPv4 address

Connect via SSH

Open your terminal and connect:

Terminal 
ssh scamp@YOUR_PUBLIC_IP

If you generated an SSH key through ServersCamp, download it first:

Terminal 
chmod 600 ~/Downloads/your-key.pem
ssh -i ~/Downloads/your-key.pem scamp@YOUR_PUBLIC_IP
Congratulations!
You've successfully deployed your first VM on ServersCamp. Your server is now running and ready to use.

Next Steps

Install CLI Tool

For faster workflows, install our command-line tool scli:

Terminal 
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/serverscamp/scli/main/install.sh | sh
scli auth login

With scli you can:

  • Create and manage VMs from your terminal
  • SSH into VMs with scli vm connect
  • Upload files to object storage
  • Script and automate your infrastructure

View full CLI documentation →

Object Storage

ServersCamp includes S3-compatible object storage for files, backups, and static assets.

  1. Go to Storage Buckets in the sidebar
  2. Click Create Bucket
  3. Enter a unique bucket name
  4. Click Create

Each bucket has its own S3 credentials. Click on a bucket to view endpoint, Access Key ID, and Secret Access Key.

View API documentation →