how to leverage oracle's temping offers
The limits of the free tier say that you can create up to 4 instances.
- x2 x86 instances (2core/1g)
- x2 ampere instances (with 4core/24g spread between them)
- 200GB total boot volume space across all intances (minimum of 50G per instance)
Warning
Oracle has silently changed the limits of the free tier to 2core/12g of memory. I will update the guide and remove this warning once this hits my account https://docs.oracle.com/en-us/iaas/Content/FreeTier/freetier_topic-Always_Free_Resources.htm
The first step is to create your oracle cloud account here: https://signup.cloud.oracle.com/
You will need a valid credit card for signup, "We do not accept virtual cards or prepaid cards. We accept credit cards and debit cards only."
Log into your new account you created above.
On the home screen, there should be a hamberger button in the top left. Click it, and the resource pane opens. Select "Compute" and then "Instances".
Click on the "Create instance" button on the next page.
Enter a name for your instance. Then give the form a second to autofill, and a region should be selected with the "Always Free-eligible" badge to the right.
Click "edit" next to "Image and Shape", and then "Change shape".
To create an instance with an x86 based processor, just leave everything default and click "Select shape".
To create an instance with an arm processor, select "Ampere" and then check the box next to "VM.Standard.A1.Flex".
Then you are given a CPU and Memory slider. You have 4 cores and 24G to use between your (max of) 2 instances. You can give one instance all 4 cores and 24G or make two instances with a variable size.
Click on "Change image" next.
This choice is personal preference. Choose the Image Name, OS, and Build based on what you need.
Then click "Select image" at the bottom.
I usually don't change any defaults here, but you can at your discretion.
Next, under the ssh section, select "paste public keys" and paste in your public key (normally found in ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub in most *nix like systems). You can also upload that file, or generate a key-pair from within the options.
Most of the time this section can be left as default.
You have 200G of disk space in the free tier, and if you use up 4 VMs then the minimum disk size of 50G (the default) is fine. If you plan to make fewer instances than 4, you can adjust the size as needed.
You will be dropped to a loading screen, and after a few it will turn green and display a public ip that you can now ssh with the username ubuntu and the private key of the public one you specified above.
ssh ubuntu@150.136.139.99
Out of capacity for shape VM.Standard.A1.Flex in availability domain AD-1. Create the instance in a different availability domain or try again later.If you specified a fault domain, try creating the instance without specifying a fault domain. If that doesn’t work, please try again later.
sad :(