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Getting started

Create an Ankra Cloud account, claim the welcome credit, deploy your first IPv6-only server and connect to it over SSH.

This guide takes you from no account to a running server you can SSH into. It takes about five minutes.

1. Create an account#

Open cloud.ankra.app/signup and choose Continue with Ankra account. Ankra Cloud has no password of its own: you sign in with the same account you use for Ankra Platform at platform.ankra.app, and creating one there takes a minute if you do not have it yet. Your email address must be verified with that account.

Both products share one sign-in, so if you are signed in to Ankra Platform you are signed in to Ankra Cloud as well, and signing out of one signs you out of both.

The first person in an account is its owner. You can invite teammates later (see Security).

2. Claim the welcome credit#

New accounts can redeem the coupon WELCOME500: €500 of credit, valid for 60 days from the moment you redeem it. Enter it in the Coupon code field when you create the account, or follow a sign-up link that carries ?coupon=WELCOME500, which fills it in: it is applied while the account is created, and the overview says what happened to it. Otherwise redeem it yourself in Settings → Billing → Credits, or with the API:

bash
curl -X POST https://cloud.ankra.app/v1/account/coupons \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $ANKRA_CLOUD_TOKEN" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"code": "WELCOME500"}'

The credit pays for usage incurred while it is valid, on the invoices of those months; see Billing and credits. Each account redeems a coupon once.

3. Add an SSH key#

Servers are reached with SSH keys; there are no root passwords. Add your public key under Settings → SSH keys (or POST /v1/ssh-keys) so you can pick it when you deploy. If you do not have a key yet:

bash
ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "[email protected]"
cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub

4. Deploy an IPv6-only server#

In the console open Servers → Deploy server and choose:

  1. Zone: de-fsn1 or de-fsn2.
  2. Plan: starter-1c-1g is the smallest (1 core, 1 GiB, 10 GiB storage, €1.49 a month).
  3. Template: for example Debian 13 (debian-13) or Ubuntu 24.04 (ubuntu-24.04).
  4. Network: keep the defaults. The server gets its own routed public IPv6 /64, included in the plan; the public IPv4 add-on (+€4.00 a month) stays off unless you turn it on.
  5. SSH key: the key from step 3.

Deploying starts a server.create operation; the server is ready when it shows Started.

The same with the CLI (see CLI for installation):

bash
export ANKRA_CLOUD_ENDPOINT=https://cloud.ankra.app
export ANKRA_CLOUD_TOKEN=act_...   # Settings → API tokens

ankra-cloud servers create --zone de-fsn1 --hostname web-1 --plan starter-1c-1g \
  --template debian-13 --ssh-key-file ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub --wait

Or with the API directly:

bash
curl -X POST https://cloud.ankra.app/v1/servers \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $ANKRA_CLOUD_TOKEN" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{
    "zone": "de-fsn1",
    "hostname": "web-1",
    "plan": "starter-1c-1g",
    "template": "debian-13",
    "ssh_keys": ["ssh-ed25519 AAAA... [email protected]"]
  }'

The response is 202 Accepted with the new server and the operation that builds it. Poll GET /v1/operations/{id} until its status is succeeded.

5. Connect over SSH#

The server's page shows its IPv6 address and a ready-made SSH command (the API returns it as ssh_command). The login user is the template's default user: debian on Debian, ubuntu on Ubuntu.

bash
ssh debian@2a01:db8:0:2a::1

Your own network needs IPv6 for this. If it has none (some office and mobile networks), either:

  • add a bastion network edge to a private network the server is on, then jump through its IPv4 address: ssh -J admin@<edge IPv4> debian@<server address>; or
  • turn on the public IPv4 add-on for this one server (€4.00 a month, billed per hour held).

From the server, IPv6 destinations work straight away. To reach IPv4-only services (some package mirrors, APIs), attach the server to a private network with a NAT gateway edge (NAT64 and DNS64) or a router with NAT; see IPv6-first networking.

6. Clean up#

Servers bill for every hour they exist, running or stopped. Delete what you no longer need:

bash
ankra-cloud servers delete <server-id> --wait

Deleting a server deletes its storages too, unless you keep them (--keep-storages, or ?keep_storages=true on DELETE /v1/servers/{id}).

Next steps#