Deploy your first VPS

Before you start

You need a Joy account with a verified email address. Indian customers can top up a wallet with UPI from ₹150; everyone else can pay each invoice by card, PayPal or crypto, or prepay a wallet. Hourly billing needs wallet balance for at least 24 hours of the chosen plan.

1. Open the deploy page

Go to Console → Deploy. The page has two tabs: Plans (fixed shapes) and Custom build (sliders). Everything you choose is priced live in your currency in the summary box on the right.

2. Choose a region

Each region card shows whether it is accepting deployments, how many IPv4 addresses are in stock and which templates are verified there. Pick the region closest to your users: Noida for Delhi NCR, Mumbai for western India and the best international paths, Chennai for the south, Singapore for Southeast Asia, USA for North America. Prices may carry a regional factor (shown as ×1.1 etc.).

3. Choose an operating system

• Ubuntu 24.04 LTS — the default for new projects; five years of updates.
• Ubuntu 22.04 LTS — for software that is not yet certified on 24.04.
• Windows Server 2019 / 2022 / 2025 — needs at least 2 GB RAM, adds a licence fee; RDP is enabled at first boot.

4. Choose a size

Nano (1 vCPU / 1 GB) runs a small site or a bot; Small (2 / 4) is the popular general-purpose choice; Medium (4 / 8) and up for databases, game servers and CI. If none fits, switch to Custom build and drag the sliders — there is no surcharge.

5. Billing cycle and options

Hourly (wallet) meters from your balance every hour the server exists and is ideal for experiments. Monthly issues an invoice due in 7 days; quarterly, 6-month and annual cycles take 5 / 8 / 15% off. Add extra IPv4, backup space or a 10 Gbps port here. On Linux you can paste an SSH public key so password login is never needed.

6. Hostname and pay

Give the server a hostname (lower-case, letters, digits and dashes). Click Deploy: for hourly servers the wallet is charged immediately; for cycles an invoice opens and you pay it with the method you prefer. Provisioning starts the moment the invoice is paid.

7. What happens next

The server page shows the job steps live:

1. clone — a full clone of the verified template on the least-loaded storage of a node in your region;
2. configure — disk resized to your plan, CPU/RAM set, MAC assigned, IP reserved from the pool;
3. boot — the VM starts;
4. agent — the QEMU guest agent comes up inside the VM;
5. network — the agent writes the static IP, gateway and DNS (netplan on Ubuntu, netsh on Windows), sets the hostname, regenerates machine-id and SSH host keys, sets the root / Administrator password and enables RDP on Windows;
6. ready — credentials appear on the server page and the welcome email is sent (without the password).

Typical total: 60–120 seconds.

8. Log in

# Linux
ssh root@YOUR_IP          # password from the server page, or your SSH key

# Windows — Remote Desktop
mstsc /v:YOUR_IP          # user Administrator, password from the server page

9. First five minutes

• Change the password or switch to keys — see SSH keys.
• Enable the firewall — see Firewall basics.
• Run updates: apt update && apt upgrade -y or Windows Update.
• Take a snapshot from the server page so you can roll back after experiments.
• Set reverse DNS if the server will send mail — see DNS and rDNS.

Troubleshooting

The job is stuck at "agent". Windows templates take longer on first boot; wait up to five minutes. If it fails, the job page shows the reason and a retry button; the retry is free. I cannot reach the IP. Open the noVNC console from the server page and check ip a — if the address is missing, use "Reapply network" on the server page. Wrong region or size. Destroy the server (hourly: you pay for the hours used) and deploy again; for cycles, open a Billing ticket within 24 hours and we will move the payment.