Getting started with your FreeBSD VPS

Your FreeBSD VPS boots from a current server cloud image, with your IPv4, IPv6, hostname, and any SSH keys applied at first boot by cloud-init — so networking and DNS are already configured before you log in. This guide takes you from "just deployed" to a clean, patched, working server.

1. Log in

If you pasted an SSH public key on the order form, connect straight away:

ssh root@YOUR.IP.ADDRESS

No key on file? Open the browser console from the portal (Service → Console), sign in with the credentials set at deploy, and add a key or password. The console attaches to the VM's virtual display, so it works even before networking is up — it is always your way back in.

2. Create an admin account

Working as root over SSH is a habit worth dropping. Add a normal user and give it privilege escalation with doas (FreeBSD's lean sudo):

adduser                       # interactive; add yourself to the 'wheel' group
pkg install doas
echo 'permit persist :wheel' > /usr/local/etc/doas.conf

Copy your key to the new user, confirm doas works, then consider disabling root SSH login in /etc/ssh/sshd_config (PermitRootLogin no) and reloading with service sshd reload.

3. Set the timezone and update

tzsetup                       # pick your timezone interactively
freebsd-update fetch install  # base-system security patches
pkg update && pkg upgrade      # package updates

See Keeping FreeBSD up to date for the full patching workflow, and Managing software with pkg for day-to-day package work.

4. Put a firewall in front of it

Before you expose services, set up pf — FreeBSD's built-in packet filter. Our pf firewall guide has a copy-paste starting ruleset that locks everything down except SSH and the ports you actually serve.

What you control from the portal

These are enforced at the hypervisor, so they behave identically on FreeBSD and Linux, and you never open a ticket for any of them: the browser console, on-demand snapshots, OS reload, rescue mode, the cloud firewall, reverse DNS for IPv4 and IPv6, live resource graphs and bandwidth totals, and CPU/RAM/disk resource changes.

A note on FreeBSD vs Linux tooling

A few in-guest conveniences on our Linux plans use Linux-only tooling and are handled natively on FreeBSD instead — you use pf and blacklistd rather than the portal's fail2ban panel, and pkg rather than the one-click app installers. The full list is in FreeBSD vs Linux VPS on LYLIX.