Welcome to RunCloud. We’re beyond excited to have you here. 🤝
Note: If you stumbled across this page, RunCloud is cloud server management software that makes it incredibly easy to deploy and manage servers hosting web applications including WordPress, WooCommerce, Laravel.
With RunCloud, you don’t need to be a Linux expert to host your website, powered by DigitalOcean, UpCloud, Linode, Vultr, Google Cloud, Amazon Lightsail, or your own favourite server provider.
So, without further ado – let’s get you up & running:
1 – Connect Your First Server
Connecting your first server to RunCloud is incredibly easy. There are three different methods you can use:
- Direct Server Provisioning using your server provider’s API
- Direct Server Installation using your server’s IP address and root password.
- Manual Server Installation via IP address.
Note: Your server must meet the minimum server requirements here:
- Ubuntu 16.04/18.04/20.04 x86_64 LTS, fresh installation only.
- At least one static public IP Address, especially for Google Cloud and AWS users where an additional step is needed to setup a static public IP Address for your server.
- At least port 22, 80, 443, and 34210 are open, especially for Google Cloud, AWS, Azure, and Alibaba Cloud users where an additional step is needed to open these required ports for your server.
Deploy Your Server Using Your Server Provider’s API
The first, easiest, and recommended way to deploy your first server is using our direct integrations with your server provider of choice. Whether that’s UpCloud, DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, or Amazon Lightsail – we’ve got you covered.
Simply add their API key to your account here to enable the integration and you’ll be able to choose your provider of choice, server size and handle the deployment all directly from your RunCloud dashboard.
Once you select Deploy Server Automatically – you’ll be prompted to choose between NGINX or OpenLiteSpeed server stack:
Note: The choice is often dependent on personal preference, for our own site we use Nginx but OpenLiteSpeed is a great alternative with very solid performance out of the box.
Once you’ve made your choice between Nginx and OpenLiteSpeed, select the server provider integration (API key) you wish to use, you’ll be taken to the server configuration step where you’ll:
1 – Choose your data center region
This is generally an easy decision surrounding where most of you, your team, and your customers are based. To learn more about what goes into the decision of what the ideal server location is & how much it actually matters – we’ve got a detailed guide covering that here.
2 – Choose your server instance size
Advising on server size with no knowledge of the scenario or use-case is very difficult. Generally-speaking you want to be generous here to ensure that your web application has more than enough resources to be performant – that is, not that as you run updates or start getting more traffic that it’s such a small server to the point where this could affect the end-user experience.
3 – Give your server a name
And lastly, you’ll give your server a name at this step. As your first server, it’ll be easy to locate and remember which web applications you add to it but over time developing a naming convention makes it easier to know which server is being used for what purpose (i.e. production, staging, region, etc.).
Note: You can easily change your server name at any time after it’s been deployed.
And that’s it – hit add server and sit back!
RunCloud will handle the rest, and set up everything on your server.
Connect Your Server Using Your Server’s IP & Root Password
When using this connection method, the difference is that you deploy your server with your provider of choice first – making a note of the server’s IP address and root password. Then, you’ll simply be prompted to enter the IP address here:
And hit continue, at which point you’ll be taken here where you’ll enter the server’s root password & hit Start The Installation:
At which point, you can also kick back and let RunCloud handle the rest for you.
Manually Connect Your Server
And lastly, if your server provider doesn’t provide a root password, you can use manual server installation to connect your server.
You only need to open your server console, run RunCloud installation script, then sit back and relax, our manual server installation will setup your server in minutes.
Special note for Google Cloud and AWS users: these providers disable root login by default. To login as root inside a Google Cloud or AWS server, login as default user and then use command “sudo -s” before you run the RunCloud installation script.
The following table shows all supported server providers.
2 – Create Your First Web Application
Now that you’ve deployed & connected your server using one of the available methods.
To do so, navigate to the server you want to deploy your web application in your RunCloud Dashboard, select Web Applications from the server navigation menu:
If you want to deploy WordPress or WooCommerce, this couldn’t be easier thanks to our 1-click WordPress installation functionality – here’s how:
And for non-WordPress web applications, there are a number of other options:
1 – Including installing other applications using our built-in script installer.
2 – Connecting your Git Repository via GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, etc.
And the final option if none of the above are suitable for your setup, you can always deploy an empty web application that you then manually configure afterward.
3 – Point Your Domain to Your Web Application
You can use RunCloud’s free test domains for staging and test environments, but once you’re ready to deploy to production, you’ll need to point your domain to your server.
There are three required steps to add your domain to your web application in RunCloud.
First, register a domain. You can register and purchase a domain from a domain registrar, for example, Namecheap or GoDaddy.
Second, add your domain to RunCloud. You can add your domain, both www and non-www version, to the Domain Name menu under your Web Application in RunCloud.
Third, configure DNS records (i.e. create an A record for the www and root of your URL for the common scenarios). You can configure DNS records of your domain from a DNS management service, for example, Cloudflare, DNSMadeEasy, DigitalOcean, etc.
DNS Propagation Checker
After configuring DNS records, it will take time from minutes to 24-48 hours for the DNS records to be fully propagated across the internet.
If you want to check the status of DNS propagation of your domain, you can use any DNS propagation checker service, for example:
Once your DNS records have been propagated successfully, your website will be officially live using your domain.
Change Your WordPress Address
For WordPress website, after your DNS records has been propagated successfully, you can change your WordPress Address from RunCloud free domain to your own domain, using General Settings menu under your Web Application in RunCloud.
We hope this quick getting started guide has made getting up & running with your first server and web application incredibly easy. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to our support team – we’re always here to help.