Launch your first server

This is the fundamentals path of the Quickstart: the honest IaaS on-ramp every other learning path builds on. The walkthrough takes about 30 minutes and uses a public web server as the working example. By the end, you'll have a running server on the public internet serving a page you wrote yourself, plus a working understanding of how the platform fits together.

Browser address bar pointing at a public IP and rendering the heading 'Hello from Alex on Quake AI' — The greeting page you'll publish in step 4, served from a Quake AI VM at its public IP

Prerequisites#

You need a Quake AI account with a project and a resource tier picked. If you have not done that yet, work through Get started at the top of the Quickstart first.

The walkthrough has five steps:

Set up a secure login from your computer to your server.
Configure your project's firewall to allow login and web traffic.
Launch a server.
Connect to the server, install web-server software, and publish a page.
Delete the server when you're done (optional).

To follow along, you'll need:

A web browser and a terminal on your computer (macOS, Linux, or WSL on Windows).
About 30 minutes. Most of that is the server starting up and the web-server software installing.

You can follow the walkthrough through Quake AI's browser interface (the default), the command line, or OpenTofu (Terraform) code. From step 2 onward, each step has tabs for all three. Pick one and stay with it for the rest of the walkthrough.

If you work with an AI coding assistant, you can reach the same result by driving it instead: see How to provision a server with an AI agent.

The final step is optional. A running server uses your project's resources (a CPU core, memory, a public IP address) and stays reachable from the internet for as long as it's up. Step 5 walks through deleting the server when you're ready to clean up. If you want to keep the server running and experiment further, skip the final step.

1. Add an SSH key#

SSH (Secure Shell) is the standard protocol for logging into a Linux server from your terminal. Quake AI authenticates SSH with a key pair: a public key you upload to your project and a private key that stays on your workstation. SSH never transmits the private key over the network. See Key pairs for more.

Generate an SSH key pair on your local machine if you do not already have one:

bash

ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "[email protected]"

When prompted, press Enter to accept the default file location (~/.ssh/id_ed25519). Optionally set a passphrase.

Terminal showing ssh-keygen invocation, the resulting key fingerprint, and the randomart image for a new ed25519 key pair — Generating an ed25519 key pair from a local terminal with ssh-keygen

Upload the public key (~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub) to your project. Name the key after the workstation that holds the private key. my-laptop, your hostname, or your username are all common choices. You will reuse this key for every server you create, so pick a name you will recognize later.

In the portal, go to Compute > Key Pairs and select Create Keypair.
In the dialog that opens, switch to the Import Keypair tab.
Provide a name (for example, my-laptop).
Paste the contents of ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub into the Public Key field.
Select OK.

Create Keypair dialog with the Create Keypair tab selected and the Name field visible at the top of the form — Create Keypair dialog on the default Create Keypair tab; switch to Import Keypair before pasting the public key

Verify your key appears in the Key Pairs list before continuing.

Compute Key Pairs list showing the project key pairs (val-2026-05-c1-key, val-2026-q3-add-bastion-key, val-2026-q3-mig-auto-key, val-2026-q3f-qs-key), each with a name and a fingerprint column — Key Pairs list (capture session) showing the existing project key pairs

2. Create a security group#

A security group is a virtual firewall attached to your instance's network port. Each rule allows specific inbound (ingress) or outbound (egress) traffic by protocol, port range, and source address. Every project includes a default security group that allows traffic only between its own members, so an instance using only default is unreachable from the internet. Create a dedicated group that opens TCP port 22 (SSH) and TCP port 80 (HTTP), then select it instead of default when you launch the server in step 3. See Security groups for more.

Network Security Groups list showing the project groups (val-2026-q3f-qs-sg and default) and a Create Security Group button in the top right — Network Security Groups list (capture session) showing the project's existing groups

In the portal, go to Network > Security Groups > Create Security Group.
Name the group web-access. The Description field is optional.
After saving, open the group and select Create Rule.
From the Protocol dropdown, select SSH. The dialog auto-fills Direction to Ingress and Ether Type to IPv4. The SSH preset implies port 22 and hides the Port Type and Port fields, so you do not set them. Leave Source at its default All Traffic (which resolves to 0.0.0.0/0).

Create Rule dialog with Protocol set to SSH preset, Ingress direction, IPv4 ether type, and All Traffic source. The SSH preset hides the Port Type and Port fields because port 22 is implied by the preset. — Create Rule dialog with Protocol set to the SSH preset; the Port Type and Port fields are hidden because port 22 is implied by the preset

Save the rule.
Select Create Rule again. From the Protocol dropdown, select Custom TCP Rule and set Port to 80. Leave Direction at Ingress, Ether Type at IPv4, and Source at All Traffic.
Save the rule.

Security Group detail page for val-2026-q3f-qs-sg with description Quickstart capture session: SSH+HTTP, two ingress rules (TCP port 22 from 0.0.0.0/0 and TCP port 80 from 0.0.0.0/0), and the default IPv4 and IPv6 egress rules — Security Group detail page for the capture-session group val-2026-q3f-qs-sg, with the same two ingress rules the prose creates on web-access

Confirm the group has both rules listed (TCP/22 and TCP/80) before continuing.

For production, restrict the SSH rule's Source (CLI flag --remote-ip) to your workstation's public address instead of leaving the default All Traffic (0.0.0.0/0). Port 80 stays open to the internet because you're running a public web server.

3. Launch your first server#

Launch a virtual machine on the PublicEphemeral network. Instances on this network receive a public IP directly, so SSH and HTTP work as soon as the instance reaches Active status.

Compute Instances list showing the val-2026-q3f-qs-vm row in Active status and a Create Instance button in the top right — Compute Instances list (capture session) showing existing project instances and the Create Instance button

Click to enlarge

Step 3: Create Instance wizard advancing through Base Config, Network Config, System Config, and Confirm Config

The wizard opens with three tabs (Base Config, Network Config, System Config); the Confirm Config tab appears once the first three tabs validate. Advance with the Next: button at the bottom of each tab.

Base Config#

Select Compute > Instances > Create Instance.
Name the instance web-01 and choose an availability zone (for example, us-east-1a).
Pick the s1a.micro flavor under Shared Resources (1 vCPU, 1 GiB RAM, the Developer-plan footprint).
Select an image (Ubuntu-24.04 is a good first choice) and set a disk size of at least 20 GiB. Check Deleted with the instance so the platform removes the disk when you delete the instance later.

Network Config#

Select Next: Network Config.
From the network list, select PublicEphemeral.
In the security groups list, select web-access (the group created in step 2). The wizard does not pre-select the project's default group; selecting web-access applies the rules you created in step 2 and is enough on its own to allow inbound SSH and HTTP.

Create Instance wizard Network Config step showing the Security Group panel. A search box filters a scrollable table (Name, Description, Created At, Rules) with one checkbox per security group; selected groups appear as chips below the table. The val-2026-q3f-qs-sg row is checked. — Network Config step: Security Group panel (capture session) with val-2026-q3f-qs-sg checked

System Config#

Select Next: System Config.
Choose Keypair as the login type.
Select the my-laptop keypair you uploaded in step 1.

Confirm Config#

Select Next: Confirm Config and review the summary.
Select Confirm to launch.

The instance moves from Build to Active within a minute.

Instance detail page for val-2026-q3f-qs-vm showing Active power state, flavor, image, key pair, security group, and the assigned public IP — Instance detail page for the capture-session instance val-2026-q3f-qs-vm in Active status; your instance shows the same fields under the name you chose (web-01 if you followed the prose)

Connect#

In the Instances list, copy the public address shown in the Fixed IP column for web-01 (PublicEphemeral attaches the public address directly to the instance's port, so it appears as the fixed IP rather than as a separate floating IP). Then from your local terminal:

bash

ssh ubuntu@INSTANCE_IP

Replace INSTANCE_IP with the address from the Instances list. Type yes to accept the host key. Your prompt changes to ubuntu@web-01, confirming the server is up and reachable.

4. Serve a page#

You are logged in to web-01 as ubuntu over SSH. Install nginx, write a page, and visit it from your browser.

Install nginx:

bash

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y nginx

Ubuntu starts nginx automatically. nginx is already serving its default welcome page on port 80.

Replace the default page with your own greeting (substitute your name):

bash

echo '<h1>Hello from Alex on Quake AI</h1>' | sudo tee /var/www/html/index.html

Terminal session on the instance showing apt update output, apt install -y nginx output, and the echo tee command writing the greeting to the nginx document root — Terminal showing sudo apt update, sudo apt install -y nginx, and the echo command writing the greeting to /var/www/html/index.html

Open http://INSTANCE_IP in your browser (substitute the public IP you used to SSH in). The greeting renders. nginx is serving the page from the Quake AI VM you provisioned and configured in this walkthrough.

To publish the same site on a domain you own, point your domain at the instance's public address before you add TLS with Let's Encrypt or a CDN in front.

Click to enlarge

Step 4: install nginx, write a page, and visit the public IP from a browser

Disconnect from the server:

bash

exit

5. Clean up#

A public web server should not run unattended. Delete the instance now that you have seen the page. You can reuse the SSH key (my-laptop) and the security group (web-access); leave them in place for the next server you launch.

In the portal, go to Compute > Instances.
Find the web-01 row, open the Settings (gear) icon, and select Delete.

Compute Instances list with the val-2026-q3f-qs-vm row, the Settings (gear) icon visible at the right of the row, and no menu currently expanded — Compute Instances list (capture session) showing the val-2026-q3f-qs-vm row and the Settings (gear) icon; click the icon and choose Delete to remove the instance

Confirm the deletion. The instance disappears from the list within a few seconds.
Verify web-01 is no longer in the Instances list before closing the page.

You provisioned a public web server, viewed it in a browser, and deleted it. The same workflow extends to more complex projects: more instances, custom images, automation, self-managed reverse proxies, Kubernetes clusters. Where to go next:

How to point a domain at a Quake AI resource: map a hostname at your registrar to a floating IP or public address.
How to issue and auto-renew a TLS certificate with Let's Encrypt: HTTPS on the VM you built.
How to put a CDN in front of a Quake AI workload: cache static assets at the edge after DNS is set.
Compute concepts: instances, flavors, images, and how the platform models them.
Quickstart learning paths: static sites, databases, containerized apps, object storage, and infrastructure as code.
Access & Credentials: full CLI setup, app credentials, API tokens, and credential rotation.
Automation how-tos: IaC patterns, CI integration, and template usage.
Platform overview: what Quake AI is, what it runs on, and how it differs from other providers.

Launch your first server

Launch your first server

Prerequisites#

1. Add an SSH key#

2. Create a security group#

3. Launch your first server#

Base Config#

Network Config#

System Config#

Confirm Config#

Connect#

4. Serve a page#

5. Clean up#

Usage Guidelines

See Also