After ordering, you will find your new server under My products > Servers with the note Setup pending. The dashboard also points this out. Open the server - instead of the tabs you will see the Set up server assistant with four steps. There is no email with access data: you define everything you need to log in yourself here.
Step 1: operating system
Every distribution has a card. Click a card and choose the version. We always install the latest tested state with all updates. "Updates until" names the year up to which the vendor provides security updates, "Version date" the date of our image. Which systems are available is listed under Operating systems.
Step 2: access and SSH keys
User: with root (default) you log in directly as administrator. With Own user we create a user with sudo rights; logging in as root via SSH is then blocked. The name may be 1 to 32 characters long (lower-case letters, digits, _ and -, starting with a letter or _). System names such as admin or daemon are reserved.
Password: with Generate randomly we create a secure password that you retrieve exactly once in the customer area after setup. With Set yourself you enter it: at least 12 characters, following our password policy, not known from data leaks and without the user name. We only store a secure hash of it.
SSH keys: select at least one key from your profile or add a new one directly. Logging in via SSH is only possible with a key - the password is for the console in the customer area.
No SSH key yet?
How to generate a key pair and store it in your profile is shown in Generating and managing SSH keys. With Add key you save the public key to your profile directly from the assistant.
Step 3: hostname
Give the server a name, for example web-01 or server.your-domain.com, or accept the suggestion. The check reports while you type whether the name is valid and available.
Step 4: summary and start
Check system, user, password, keys and hostname. With Provision server we set up the server. Later you can only change system, access and keys via reinstallation.
During setup
The page shows the progress Being created → Starting → Reachable and refreshes itself. This usually takes one to two minutes. The firewall is already active before the first start.
Once the server is reachable, retrieve the initial password if you chose a random one, and log in: Access data and initial password and First login via SSH.