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:

• Phoenix, USA
• Ashburn, USA
• Chicago, USA
• Seatle, USA
• Austin, 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. Use the Show only immediately available instances to hide unavailable servers. If the server configuration is unavailable in any data center, click Contact Sales to be informed about availability, or select another server.

The Available Locations button appears when a server is available in a location different from the selected data center.

Click the Available Locations button to choose an alternative location for the selected configuration.

Pick a location and click Select to confirm the choice.

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.

If you select Ubuntu Focal, the server will be ready in one minute.

Click Next to continue to the Instance Details screen.

Custom OS

Select the Custom OS tile to provision a server where a fully functional OS is located entirely in the system memory (RAM). The BMC Portal supports Ubuntu Jammy at the moment.

Read the warning message carefully and click OK to continue.

The operating system installed to RAM is the same as the regular provision to a disk. The only difference is that the disks remain empty since the OS files occupy the RAM space.

When you finish setting up and the Custom OS server boots up, you can use the lsblk tool to check and verify disk space:

The output shows disks as empty. Every other action or process is the same as on any standard server provision.

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 Instance Details page.

STEP 6: Remote Access

To access a BMC server, use SSH, BMC Remote Console, or, if you choose a Windows server, RDP.

The steps for Windows, ESXi, and Proxmox remote access appear only when one of those OSes is selected.

Windows – RDP

When deploying a Windows server, an additional step for Remote Desktop appears. This step is optional and you can only use SSH to access your server if you want.

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.

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. Choose who can connect to the Proxmox server.

Select White Listed IPs from the drop-down menu and add the IPs or IP ranges to limit the access. If you do not want any restrictions, 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.

STEP 7: Add Public SSH Key

The Public SSH Key section shows the default user account information depending on the the selected OS. Select the first field to choose a saved public SSH key from the list, if you have any.

To add an SSH key, use the SSH Keys Management section.

To assign a new public SSH key to the server you are deploying, select the + button and paste the key in the field. Select the same button again if you want to add multiple public SSH keys.

When your server boots up, SSH will be set up and ready to use, except for ESXi servers.

The user root is disabled by default for Linux.

STEP 8: Cloud Init (Linux only)

When you choose a Linux-based server, the Cloud Init step is visible on the Instance Details page.

Select the checkbox if you want to add a custom script to the cloud-init configuration.

Paste the user-data content in the text field to apply the configuration on the first system reboot. Refer to the Cloud-init article for more information.

STEP 9: Public IPs Selection

To allow access to your server directly from the Internet, you must assign a public IP allocation. There are three options:

1. Assign a previously purchased public IP allocation. Click the dropdown menu and select the preowned public IP allocation from the same location as the server.

2. Buy a public IP allocation for the server you are deploying. Once you finish deploying the BMC server, the public IP allocation will be assigned.

3. Do not assign a public IP allocation and create a private-only server. The instance will not be accessible from the Internet, only by private networks. In this case, deploy a server with public access to reach the private one or use the remote console feature.

To view the assigned IP addresses after the server is deployed, go to the Servers page. Click the name of the server you created to view the details and select the Network & IP Settings tab.

STEP 10: Networks and Gateway (Optional)

Assign the BMC server to public and private networks. If you assign a server to a private network only, it will not be accessible over public networks.

To assign a server to a public network:

1. Click + Add To Network to reveal the configuration fields in the Public Networks section.

2. Select a previously created public network from the list. The list shows only the networks in the same data center location as the server you are deploying.

3. Specify one or more CIDRs for the selected network.

4. Select the available public IP addresses from the dropdown menu or type in the entries.

Click the + button again to add the server to another public network.

To add the server to a private network:

1. Click + Add To Network to reveal the configuration fields in the Private Networks section.

2. Choose a previously created private network in the dropdown list. The menu shows only the private networks in the same data center location as the server you are deploying.

3. Select private IP addresses from the dropdown menu or type in the valid IPv4 entries. The field is grayed out if you check the box to use your own DHCP server.

Click the + button again to add the server to another private network.

The default gateway step appears only if you add a server to a public or private network. In that case, enter a valid address from the CIDR you assigned to the server. Leave the field empty to use the Bare Metal Cloud default gateway IP.

STEP 11: 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.