How to Deploy Websites on Oracle Cloud Free Tier
Deploy WordPress or Ghost or Any Projects on Oracle Cloud for Free
31 October, 2022
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What is Oracle Cloud Free Tier?
Oracle Cloud Free Tier is a gift from Oracle for all of their Oracle Cloud users. It allows users (Oracle Cloud accounts) to use some of their services for free, such as:
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Two AMD Compute VMs
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Up to 4 instances of ARM Ampere A1 Compute with 3,000 OCPU hours and 18,000 GB hours per month2 Block Volumes Storage, 200 GB total
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2 Block Volumes Storage, 200 GB total
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See the rest of the free services, or watch the video.
Simply put, Oracle Cloud offer free VMs, with no time constraints, unlimited. These VMs can be used to host our projects or websites.
To get that benefit, one needs to sign-up and create an Oracle Cloud account.
An active Credit Card is needed to complete the sign-up process.
After the sign-up is completed, the account will be eligible for Always Free services and a Free Trial with US$300 free credit for up to 30 days. After the Free Trial expires, we will still be able to use and manage the existing Always Free resources and can create new Always Free resources.
When the Free Trial expires, we will still be able to use and manage the existing Always Free resources and can create new Always Free resources.
Create free VM on Oracle Cloud
Oracle Cloud - Hamburger menu -> Compute -> Instances
Oracle Cloud - Create Instance
After successfully signing up, please click on the hamburger menu on the left. Select Compute, then click Instances. A new page will open. Click the "Create instance" button.
Give a name to the VM that you will create.
After that, we need to make sure that the VM that we are going to create is using the "Always Free" service. We need to set the Image and Shape we use for the VM.
Oracle Cloud - Create Instance -> Edit Image and Shape
Click the Change image. There are multiple images that they offer. There will be an “Always Free-eligible” tag for free tier images (see the picture below). For this article, we’re going to select the Canonical Ubuntu image.
For this article, we’re going to select the Canonical Ubuntu image.
Oracle Cloud - Create Instance -> Edit Image and Shape -> Change Image
After that, we need to generate an SSH key which we will use to access the VM we have created. Remember to store it in a safe place.
Oracle Cloud - Generate an SSH key pair
Now, Click the “Create” button. This process might take a few minutes.
After the Compute Instance is created, we need to configure the network setting to allow external connection over HTTP and HTTPS.
Open the hamburger menu, and click Virtual Cloud Networks.
Oracle Cloud - Hamburger menu -> Networking -> Virtual Cloud Networks
Oracle Cloud - Virtual Cloud Networks -> vcn-* -> subnet-* -> Default Security List for vcn-* -> Add Ingress Rules
Now you can go to the Compute Instance detail page to see the Public IP and username to be used to connect using SSH.
Go through the links in the table. The links are named like this
vcn-* → subnet-* → Default Security List for vcn-*. Click the “Add Ingress Rules” button. Allow traffic to Port 80 (HTTP) and 443 (HTTPS). Connect to Oracle Cloud Instance using SSH
In your terminal, navigate to your private key folder. Type this following command, and change the `ssh-key-*.key` and the public IP to match yours.
Next, you need to update and upgrade the system
Another important step is to open port
port 80 and port 443 in the iptable.That's it! Congratulations, we just finished deploying the Ubuntu VM. Now, we can do many things with this VM. For example, we can use this to host our website or projects.
Next, we will try to deploy a website using WordPress and Ghost, for free!
How to create a WordPress website for free on Oracle Cloud Free Tier
I. Install LEMP stack on Ubuntu
Run the following command:
After Nginx is installed, you should be able to access your Public IP via browser.
II. Download the latest WordPress
We need to download WordPress's latest build and extract it to the web server folder.
III. Configure Database
The next step is to create the database to be used by the WP engine. Change the database user and the password.
IV. Configure NGINX
We need to adjust the NGINX configuration to point to our WordPress.
To do this, edit the config file located in /etc/nginx/sites-available/default.
V. Restart NGINX
Voila! Your WordPress is deployed. Access your public IP via browser and finish your WordPress installation.
How to self-host Ghost website for free on Oracle Cloud Free Tier
Ghost is an open-source CMS that supports subscriptions, membership, and newsletters. They use Node.js for the server and handlebars.js as a template language.
This is how you can deploy Ghost on Oracle Cloud Free Tier. We will need to install NodeJS, NGINX, and MySQL database.
I. Install NGINX, MySQL
II. Enable and Configure MySQL database
Set root password for MySQL:
After that, we need to create a user and database for the Ghost installation.
III. Install NodeJS 16.x on Ubuntu
We need to install NodeJS version 16.x for the Ghost installation.
IV. Install Ghost CMS on Ubuntu
After we install NodeJS and MySQL, we need to install Ghost CLI.
That's it, for further installation guide, I recommend you to check Ghost Installation Documentation.
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