Getting Started

Sign-up

Signing-up for a Genesis VMs account is as simple as:

  • Registering for an account on our billing portal.
  • Selecting the ORDER menu
  • Selecting Genesis VMs
  • Clicking the “Order Now” button and completing the purchase process.

You will be prompted for:

  • Choose a Domain
    • This name is used for the name of the server when it is provisioned and allows you to easily reference the server in our billing system.
  • Choose a Billing Cycle
    • This determines what your discount level will be, as well as how often you wish to be billed (every 1, 3, 6, 12, 24, or 36 months).
  • Choose a Flavor
    • Flavors exist for every imaginable size (CPUs and Memory and Disk storage size) including shared and dedicated core varieties.
    • Review our Genesis VM Flavors
  • Choose an Operating System
  • Choose a Region (note that we currently only have our Chicago location currently)

Accessing your Linux machine

If you chose a Linux machine, you will use your SSH client to connect to the Linux server. Passwordless authentication is required to access your machine, so you will need the private key we created.

To retrieve the private key, choose the VM Order on our Orders page, and click the “Download Private Key” button under the “Additional Tools” heading. Also note the “Floating IP Address”.

If you are using a Linux or BSD system, you can use the following command to connect to the new Linux server:

ssh -i <your private key file> root@<floating ip address>

IF you are using a Windows machine, use an SSH client such as PuTTY. However, with PuTTY, you will need to convert the SSH private key file to a PPK file using PuTTYgen. Simply choose File->Load private key, and then choose File->Save private key. The result will be a file you can specify in PuTTY in the Connection->SSH->Auth->Private key file for authentication field. When prompted with “Login as:”, specify “centos”. Alternatively, specify the IP address in PuTTY as “centos@<ip address>”.

Accessing your Windows machine

If you chose a Windows image for the volume attached to the server, you will use RDP to connect to the Windows server.

Windows Servers are deployed with the firewall configured to NOT allow RDP access. This allows you to restrict the source IP(s) of your RDP client in case you are sensitive to allowing RDP access from anywhere in the world.

To adjust the firewall to allow RDP access, choose the VM Order on our Orders page, and click the “Firewall” button under the “Additional Tools” heading. Click “Add Rule”, click the “Port” drop-down, and choose “RDP”. If you wish to restrict the source IP (or IP Range in CIDR format), specify this in the respective field. Then click the “Add” button.

The initial password is provided via email. Use this for the “Administrator” password.

NOTE - Windows will require that you change the password upon first login.