Install Dokploy on Oracle Lifetime Free Compute VPS

IMPORTANT NOTE: Before moving forward, you should know that Oracle only allocates a few compute instances for the free users, and when you try to create an instance, you will get Error: 500-InternalError, Out of host capacity. That means, at present, there is no resource available for creating your free instance. There are several ways to fix this:

Selecting a different domain: this doesn’t work most of the time.
Running an automated script to try creating instances: Try this if you have lots of time to waste. There’s also a chance to get banned.
Upgrading the subscription by adding a payment method: Oracle deducts $100 from your account for verification and refunds it.

We will use an upgraded Oracle account and set up a budget alert to receive notifications.

Read all the Terms and Conditions of using Oracle Free Tier

Step 1: Creating an Oracle Cloud Free Tier Account

Enter the basic Details, like name, email, and country.
Then select the server location and provide the billing address.
Then they ask for payment details, and deduct $1 and refund it.

Step 2: Upgrade the Subscription

Visit cloud.oracle.com/invoices-and-orders/upgrade-and-payment
Click the “Add Payment Method” button, then add card details.
Then click on Upgrade subscription. It will take 10–20 minutes, and you will get an email once your account is ready.

Step 3: Set up a Budget Alert

Visit cloud.oracle.com/usage/budgets
Click on the Create Budget button, and enter a few basic details.
In the Budget Amount (in SGD) field, enter “1.”
Threshold Type select “Percentage of Budget” and Threshold % value “1”.

Step 4: As a Prerequisite, create an SSH key

Run the commands below on your bash terminal

That's it for now. We will come back to copy the public key when we deploy.

Step 5: Deploy the Dokploy Terform Project.

This setup creates 2 OCI (Oracle Cloud Instances), one is used as the dokploy Leader node, and the other is used as a Worker node. If you don’t want dokploys multicluster Architecture. You can simply delete the second OCI; that’s it.

We will be using the Dokploy Terraform project created by statickidz
Click the following cloud.oracle.com/resourcemanager/stacks/create

On the Stack Information Screen:

Select the Oracle Terms of Use, the Checkboxes, and enter the name and description. Keep the remaining things as they are and click next.

On the Configure Variables Screen:

All the fields are mandatory here.

availability_domain_main & availability_domain_workers

Try to create a dummy instance by clicking here
Copy AD1 and AD2 values from the screen.

2. compartment_id

Navigate to Tenancy. Copy the First Field, OCID

3. instance_shape

Leave it as it is, unless you want to use an AMD machine, then enter VM.Standard.E2.1.Micro

4. memory_in_gbs

Default values are 6GB. Max is 24 GB or 4VMS (Always Available for Free).
Terform creates 2 OCI, so 2 GB of your Memory will be consumed.

5. num_worker_instances

Default is 1, which means 1 main node and 1 worker node.
If I make it 2, it will create 3 OCIs. 1 main + 2 workers. Choose this in a way that everything remains under the free plan.

6. ocpus

This decides your monthly OCPUS hours. Keep it within the free limit.
If your num_worker_instances is 1, then you can choose 2. If it's more than that, keep it to 1 only.

7. source_image_id

Select the right one for your region from here

8. ssh_authorized_keys (single key)

This key is then used for SSHing into the main node and the work nodes

9. use_reserved_public_ip

Check this, this creates Static IPs for our OCIs. 50 static IPs are free.

On the Review Screen:

Check Run apply, then click on create.
This will create the Dokploy Installed OCIs for you; it will take hardly 5- 10 mins. Make sure you have an upgraded account.

🎉Congratulations, you have successfully deployed Dokploy on OCI.

Now visit http:your_ip:3000 to access the dokploy instance.

You can find the IP address in the Logs or in the Instance dashboard.

Optional Steps:

1. SSH into the OCI

Once you are inside the instance, use it sudo to execute any commands.

2. Adding Worker Nodes

Visit the SSH keys section inside Dokploy
Click on Add New Key. Do not generate a new key.
Upload the previously created public and private key from ~/.ssh
Once you save the Visit Servers dashboard.
Add the new server by giving the Worker node IP and the previously created SSH key pair. Learn more here

Uninstalling Dokploy

For uninstalling Dokply, refer to this Doc from Dokply

Optionally, you can destroy the Terform project from here on OCI

Oracle Lifetime Free Compute VPS + Dokploy