Oracle Cloud Always Free VPS: Step-by-Step Setup & ARM Ampere Guide

The Oracle Cloud Always Free Tier is widely regarded by sysadmins as the single most generous developer offering in cloud computing history. Providing up to 4 ARM Ampere vCPUs, 24 GB of RAM, and 200 GB of NVMe storage at zero monthly cost, an Oracle Always Free instance delivers compute performance that rivals $40/month commercial VPS plans.

In this technical masterclass, you will learn the exact step-by-step procedure to register, configure security lists, generate SSH keys, provision an Ampere A1 instance, and harden your firewall in 2026.

Direct Answer: How to Set Up an Oracle Always Free VPS in 2026

Direct Answer: Sign up on cloud.oracle.com, choose your primary Home Region, navigate to Compute > Instances > Create Instance, select VM.Standard.A1.Flex with 4 OCPUs and 24 GB RAM (or smaller split), attach an SSH public key, configure your VCN Ingress Rules for ports 80, 443, and 22, and connect via SSH.

Step-by-Step Blueprint: Deploying Your Ampere ARM VM

Step 1: Choose Your Instance Shape

1. In the Oracle Cloud Console, click Create a VM Instance.
2. Image: Choose Canonical Ubuntu 24.04 aarch64 (ARM).
3. Shape: Click Change Shape > Ampere > VM.Standard.A1.Flex.
4. Allocate your resources: 4 OCPUs and 24 GB RAM (Always Free Eligible).

Step 2: Generate & Attach SSH Keys

Oracle disables password-based SSH authentication by default. Upload your public key (id_ed25519.pub) or click “Generate a key pair for me” and download the private `.key` file.

Step 3: Configure Virtual Cloud Network (VCN) Ingress Rules

By default, Oracle’s cloud firewall blocks all ports except port 22. To host websites:

1. Go to Networking > Virtual Cloud Networks > Click your VCN > Default Security List.
2. Click Add Ingress Rules.
3. Source CIDR: 0.0.0.0/0 | IP Protocol: TCP | Destination Port: 80,443,8090.
4. Click Add Ingress Rules.

Step 4: Connect via SSH Terminal

Run the following command from PowerShell, macOS Terminal, or Linux:

ssh -i /path/to/private_key.key ubuntu@YOUR_ORACLE_PUBLIC_IP

How to Fix Oracle Ubuntu Default iptables Port Blocking

Unlike standard Ubuntu cloud images, Oracle’s custom Ubuntu images enforce an internal iptables firewall that drops incoming traffic on port 80 and 443 even if your VCN Security List is open. Execute the following commands inside your server terminal to open web ports:

# Open HTTP and HTTPS in iptables
sudo iptables -I INPUT 6 -m state --state NEW -p tcp --dport 80 -j ACCEPT
sudo iptables -I INPUT 6 -m state --state NEW -p tcp --dport 443 -j ACCEPT
sudo iptables -I INPUT 6 -m state --state NEW -p tcp --dport 8090 -j ACCEPT

# Save iptables rules permanently
sudo netfilter-persistent save

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Optimizing Oracle ARM Ampere for WordPress & MySQL Performance

The 4-core Ampere Altra Neoverse N1 processor provides formidable multi-threaded computing capability. However, default MySQL 8.0 and PHP-FPM settings on Ubuntu 24.04 are tuned conservatively for small 1GB systems. With 24 GB of free RAM available, you can dramatically accelerate database caching.

Edit your MySQL configuration file (/etc/mysql/mysql.conf.d/mysqld.cnf) and increase the InnoDB Buffer Pool size to reserve 8 GB to 12 GB of RAM for in-memory database indexing:

[mysqld]
innodb_buffer_pool_size = 8G
innodb_log_file_size = 1G
innodb_flush_log_at_trx_commit = 2
max_connections = 500

Restart MySQL with sudo systemctl restart mysql. This single optimization enables your Oracle VPS to serve tens of thousands of dynamic page requests per minute directly from high-speed memory with sub-5ms database latency.

Automating Offsite Backups with Rclone to Cloud Storage

While Oracle Cloud provides free block volume snapshots, saving offsite backups protects your data against accidental region account closures. Install Rclone (sudo apt install rclone -y) to automatically synchronize your web directory and MySQL database dumps to Google Drive or AWS S3 every midnight.