How to Deploy a Bare Metal Cloud Server

Introduction

Bare Metal Cloud (BMC) servers provide access to dedicated resources in a single-tenant environment. With quick deployment, seamless resource scaling, and no virtualization overhead, BMC is an excellent choice for any type of environment.

Deploying a BMC server is an easy process, and it takes a few minutes. The guide will show you how to deploy a Bare Metal Cloud server via the phoenixNAP BMC portal.

Prerequisites

• BMC or PNCP portal credentials. If you are a new client, create an account for Bare Metal Cloud.

Deploy New Server

To create a new BMC server via the GUI, log in to the BMC portal. The landing page is the Servers tab, where you can customize and deploy your new BMC server. Whenever you create a new server, it appears on this page.

To create a server, select the Deploy New Server button.

There are two screens with the total of eight or nine steps depending on the selected OS.

STEP 1: Select Location

Select a physical data center location for the BMC server. The pricing is the same for all locations, and you can choose any data center for the same price.

There are six available locations where you can deploy a BMC server with others coming soon:

• Phoenix, USA
• Ashburn, USA
• Chicago, USA
• Seatle, USA
• Amsterdam, NLD
• Singapore, SGP

STEP 2: Billing Selection

The billing section allows you to select the desired billing model. The available options are:

• Hourly billing. Deploy a server and pay by the hour with no contractual obligations. You will be charged a full hour even if you decommission a server before 60 minutes expire.
• Reservations. Choose a period to reserve hardware resources. 12-month and longer reservations require you to agree to the terms and conditions. One-month reservations have auto-renewal enabled automatically.

STEP 3: Server Configuration

This section offers multiple BMC server instances to choose from.

Select a single or dual CPU configuration. The bottom of every card shows the price for the selected billing model. The prices in this guide are for illustrative purposes.

STEP 4: Choose Operating System

Select the OS you want to be installed on the server during deployment.

Ubuntu, CentOS, Debian, ESXi, and Proxmox incur no additional cost, while the Windows Server system requires a fee. Deployment time and the cost are visible in the operating system cards.

For the fastest deployment, select Ubuntu Bionic. The server will be ready in one minute. Click Next to continue to the Instance Details screen.

STEP 5: Specify Hostname

Enter a unique server name in the field. Optionally, add a server description to identify your servers better if the list gets extensive.

Once the server is deployed, the server description appears at the bottom of the server details page.

STEP 6: Public IPs Selection

To allow access to your server directly from the Internet, select the Assign /29 IP allocation option. Your server gets 5 usable IPs.

If you choose Do not assign and create a private-only server, it will not be accessible from the Internet. You need to deploy a server with public access to reach the private one.

To view the assigned IP addresses, go to the Servers page and click the name of the server you created.

STEP 7 and 8: Remote Access

You can access your BMC servers using SSH, BMC Remote Console, or, if you choose a Windows server, RDP.

Windows – RDP

When deploying a Windows server, an additional step for Remote Desktop appears.

The Remote Desktop step is optional if you only want to use SSH to access your server.

To specify who can access the server using RDP, select White Listed IPs and add the IPs.

Select Allow anyone to connect if you do not want to restrict RDP access.

To learn more, read our How to Access BMC Windows Server guide.

ESXi Access

When deploying an ESXi hypervisor, an additional step for ESXi access appears. Choose if you want to add whitelisted IPs or let anyone connect to the server and the ESXi UI.

To specify who can access the server and the UI via SSH, select White Listed IPs from the drop-down menu. Next, add the IPs or IP ranges..

Select Allow anyone to connect from the drop if you do not want to restrict SSH access.

Proxmox Access

The Proxmox remote access step is the same as when deploying an ESXi server. Add whitelisted IPs or select to let anyone connect to the Proxmox server.

If you do not want to restrict the SSH access, select the Allow anyone to connect option.

If you chose to have public access, the public interface is a part of the bridge interface and the configuration is matched with the Proxmox default installation.

Add Public SSH Key

The Public SSH Key field is step 4 for Windows, ESXi, and Proxmox, and step 3 for Ubuntu, CentOS, and Debian (since the Remote Desktop option is hidden).

Select the first field to choose a saved public SSH key from the list, if you have any. You can add a key from the SSH Keys Management screen.

To add a new public SSH key for the server you are deploying, select the + button.

Paste the key in the field. Select the same button again if you want to add multiple public keys.

When your server boots up, SSH will be set up and ready to use. The user root is disabled by default.

STEP 9: Review Configuration and Create BMC Server

The top-right side of the Deploy New Server screen shows the order summary and other BMC server details:

• Server configuration.
• Cost per hour or month without tax.
• OS selection and license fee without tax.
• Public bandwidth fee per GB.
• IP allocation reminder.

When you are ready, select the Deploy New Server button to start the process. Depending on the OS you selected, server deployment takes from one to fifteen minutes.

Proxmox, ESXi and RDP Credentials

If you choose an ESXi/Proxmox server or Windows with Remote Desktop access, a pop-up box with the root/admin password appears as soon as you deploy the server.

Click the checkbox and copy the credentials and store them safely, but we advise to change this temporary password upon initial login.

For example, this is the ESXi pop-up box:

To log into your ESXi or Proxmox server, browse to the indicated IP address and use the provided credentials.

View BMC Server Status

Once you finish creating a BMC server, you are redirected to the Servers page.

The servers list contains columns with basic information for your Bare Metal Cloud instances. One of them is the Status column with the “Creating Server” message while the deployment is in progress.

Once your server is ready and powered on, the information is refreshed automatically, and the column reflects the status:

When the server is powered on, you can access it and start installing apps and services. To deploy more servers, repeat the process and choose the configuration.

Conclusion

Your server is now up and running and ready to use. The BMC portal is a quick and easy way to spin up a new BMC server when you need it. You can also use an existing reservation to deploy a server.

Flexible billing models allow you to use one server for one hour or up to three years. With no noisy neighbors, productivity stays at the highest level.

Make sure to refer to our BMC Portal Quick Start Guide to learn more about the portal’s features.