Oracle cloud configuration for Free Tier

Configuring a VCN (Virtual Cloud Network)

To have the full range of options when setting up the VPS, first create a VCN (virtual cloud network) and Create a Subnet. That way, when you are setting up the VPS (virtual private server) you can select an existing VCN and subnet.

From the user dashboard, on the right-side "Build" menu select "Set up a network with a wizard"

"Create VCN" and then use the wizard for "Create VCN with internet connectivity"

VCN name: pdg_test_vcn

Then "Reserved public IPv4 address" > Create

Configuring my First VPS

From the user dashboard, on the right-side "Build" menu select "Create compute instance" wizard,

For "placement" I selected AD2 (no reason not to go with AD1 or AD3 as far as I can tell)

Under "Advanced Options" I selected "On-demand capacity" out of the options; see https://docs.oracle.com/en-us/iaas/Content/Compute/Concepts/computeoverview.htm#capacity_types for descriptions

Under "Image and shape" the default image is "Oracle Linux 9". My Digital Ocean droplet is currently "Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS". Oracle offers 8 version of Ubuntu, so I selected 24.04

For "Shape" I selected "virtual machine" (rather than "bare metal")

For "Shape series" I selected "Ampere" (rather than AMD or Intel) and "VM.Standard.A1.Flex" which is eligble for Free Tier.

In the Networking section I set up a Primary VNIC (virtual network interface card) which connects to a VCN (virtual cloud network). This is required for a public IP for the Internet.

Primary VNIC name: pdg_test_VNIC

Primary network: "create new virtual cloud network"

new virtual cloud network name: vcn-20260127-0933_pdg

Subnet: create new public subset; name: subnet-20260127-0933_pdg. CIDR block 10.0.0.0/24

Private

 

Result: Oracle doesn't have capacity in the AD

"Out of capacity for shape VM.Standard.A1.Flex in availability domain AD-1. Create the instance in a different availability domain or try again later.If you specified a fault domain, try creating the instance without specifying a fault domain. If that doesn’t work, please try again later.Learn more about host capacity."