How to Host Your Websites on Vultr with RunCloud

Vultr is a cloud server provider that aims to make it easy for developers and businesses to deploy their infrastructure on its advanced cloud platform. It has become one of the leading choices for hosting websites. Vultr has a global presence with 32 data centers across the world – You can select the server location that is nearest to you or your target audience.

In this article, we will show you how to host your websites on Vultr using RunCloud. RunCloud is a server management platform that lets you connect, configure, and manage your web applications on any cloud server provider, including Vultr.

RunCloud makes it very easy to connect your Vultr server to its dashboard. Let’s see how!

Method 1: Deploying/Creating a Vultr Server from RunCloud Dashboard (Recommended)

RunCloud offers a server provisioning functionality that allows you to create and delete new servers directly from the RunCloud dashboard with just a few clicks. All you need to do is add the Vultr API key to your RunCloud account.

Adding Vultr API Key to RunCloud

The Vultr API key is a unique identifier that allows RunCloud to communicate with your Vultr account and create servers on your behalf. To get the Vultr API key, follow these steps:

1. Log in to your Vultr account and go to the API settings tab on Vultr.
2. Click on the “Enable API” button to generate your API key.

3. Next, go to your RunCloud dashboard and navigate to the RunCloud Integrations tab in the account settings. Select “Vultr” from the list of available integrations.

4. On the next screen, provide a descriptive name for this connection in the label field. In the “Personal Access Token” field, paste the API key generated in step 1.

4. Finally, you need to whitelist IP addresses listed in the RunCloud dashboard on your Vultr account. This will allow RunCloud to access your Vultr account on your behalf. To do this, you need to individually copy each IP address (without the subnet mask, i.e. /32 at the end of the address) and add it to Vultr.

For example, if you want to add 52.53.52.35/32, you will need to type 52.53.52.35 in the first box and then write 32 in the next box; then you need to click “Add” to add it to the list. You need to repeat this step for all of the IP addresses.

This might seem like a lot of work for something so trivial, but this is required to properly secure your account. If you do this properly, you can set it and forget it. Once you have added all of the IP addresses, it should look something like this:

5. After all of the necessary IP addresses have been whitelisted, you can go back to the RunCloud dashboard and test the integration. If you receive a success message, you can click “Save Integration” to add the key to your account.

6. If you received an error during the last step, you should double check the list of IP addresses that you have whitelisted. If you got access to your Vultr account via an invitation, the root account will need to enable the necessary permissions to create and manage servers via API on their Vultr dashboard.

To find the root user of your account, go to your Vultr profile menu, there you should see the email address of the root user that manages your account.

That’s it! Your Vultr API key is now added to RunCloud and you can use it for building servers.

Provisioning a Vultr Server with RunCloud Integration

After adding the API key to your RunCloud account, you can build your Vultr server from the RunCloud dashboard in just a few clicks. You can choose from different OS images, plans, data center regions, and instances without leaving your RunCloud dashboard.

Here are the steps to build your Vultr server with RunCloud:

1. Click on the “Let’s get started” button on the RunCloud dashboard to create your first server.
2. On the next screen, you will see a list of available server providers. Choose Vultr and click on the “Deploy Server Automatically” option.

3. Next, scroll down and select your installation type, as well as your server. After this, select the Vultr API key that we just added to RunCloud.

4. On the next screen, you will see a list of options to customize your server. You can choose the OS image (we recommend the latest version), the server plan, the data center region, and the instance that suit your needs.
   
   After adding all of the details, click on the “Add server” button to start building your server.

5. RunCloud will provision your server automatically, and show you the progress on the dashboard. It may take a few minutes to complete.

When the provision is done, you will see your server details on the dashboard. Congratulations! You have successfully built your Vultr server with RunCloud.

Video Tutorial: How to Set Up a Vultr Server from RunCloud Dashboard

If you prefer watching a video tutorial, you can check out this YouTube video that shows you how to set up a Vultr server from the RunCloud dashboard.

Method 2. Setup Vultr Manual Server Installation.

Another way to set up your Vultr server with RunCloud is to use the manual server installation method. This method requires you to create a new server on Vultr using Ubuntu 20/22 LTS OS image, and then run the RunCloud installation script on your server using an SSH client. Here are the steps to follow:

1. Go to your Vultr dashboard and navigate to the Network > Firewall menu. Once there, click on the “+” icon and select “Add Firewall Group“.
   
   Next, provide a name for your firewall, and allow incoming traffic on TCP 22, 80, 443, and 34210 ports. This is required to for RunCloud to work properly.
   
   After creating the group, it should look something like this.

2. The settings are automatically saved. After opening the necessary ports, go back to the Instances tab and click on the “+” button to deploy a new server.
   
3. On the next screen, select your desired machine type and region. Then choose Ubuntu as your OS image, and select the version that you want (20.04 or 22.04 LTS).

4. After this, choose the plan, location, hostname, and other options that suit your needs.
   
   If you plan to use automated backups on RunCloud, you can turn this feature off on Vultr.
   
   Finally, select the firewall group that we created in the drop-down menu, and click on the “Deploy Now” button.

5. Wait for a few minutes while Vultr creates your server, and assigns an IP address and a root password to it. When the server has been provisioned, note down the IP address and password for your server.

5. Go back to your RunCloud dashboard and click on the “Connect New Server” button. Choose Vultr as your server provider and click on the “Connect via IP Address” option.
   
   Select your server stack, enter the IP address of your server and click on the “Continue” button.

5. On the next screen, paste the root password of your server from the Vultr dashboard. This will install the RunCloud agent on your server.
   
   Wait for a few minutes while the script installs the necessary packages and scripts on your server. You will see a success message when it’s done.

That’s it! You have learned how to set up a manual Vultr server installation with RunCloud. You can now start deploying web applications.

Video Tutorial: How to Set Up Vultr Server with RunCloud

Final Thoughts

In this article, we have shown you how to use the server provisioning feature of RunCloud to set up a Vultr server from the RunCloud dashboard. This is a convenient and fast way to create your Vultr server without leaving RunCloud.

Vultr is a great option for hosting your websites, as it offers high-performance architecture, 100% local SSD, and high-performance Intel CPUs for as low as $5 / month.

Once you have set up your server, you can start creating your websites, adding your domains, and installing various web applications using RunCloud.

Here are some tutorials that you can follow:

• How to create your first website on RunCloud
• How to add your first domain to RunCloud
• How to install NextCloud on RunCloud
• How to install CraftCMS on RunCloud
• How to install Ghost.org on RunCloud

We hope you enjoyed this article and learned something new. If you have any questions or feedback, please leave a comment below.

Categories: Server Management, Tutorials