Create a Virtual Machine

Deploy a virtual machine (VM) by selecting a location, operating system image, and compute configuration. You can also attach networks and allocate a public IP during creation.

Prerequisites

• The Tenant Administrator or Tenant Power User role

Navigate to Virtual Machines in the sidebar and click Create VM to open the wizard. The creation wizard includes eight steps that unlock sequentially. You can return to any completed step to make changes before deployment.

Step 1 — Select Location

Choose where your VM will be deployed. Your location determines:

• Which VM sizes and OS images are available
• Which private networks can be attached
• Data sovereignty and compliance requirements
• Network latency for your end users

Click a continent to expand it (Americas, Europe Middle East and Africa, or Asia Pacific), then select a country, region, and data center. Selections highlight in blue as you drill down. A green confirmation bar appears at the bottom once a data center is selected, and Step 2 unlocks.

Step 2 — Pick VM Size

Choose the compute configuration. Two categories are available — select the tab that fits your workload:

• General Purpose — balanced CPU-to-memory ratio, suited for most applications
• Memory Optimized — higher memory per core, suited for data-heavy workloads

Clicking a row selects it and shows Typical Workloads & Fit details on the right with a short list of use cases the size is well suited for. Step 3 unlocks once a size is selected.

See Available Sizes for the full catalog of configurations.

Step 3 — Select Operating System

Choose an operating system image from the available categories:

Linux — recommended for most server workloads:

• Alma Linux 8.x / 9.x / 10.x
• Debian 11.x / 12.x
• Rocky 8.x / 9.x / 10.x
• Ubuntu 22.04 LTS / 24.04 LTS

Windows — for Windows-based workloads (Bring Your Own License):

• Windows 11 Pro
• Windows 2019 Standard
• Windows 2022 Standard
• Windows 2025 Standard

Network/Security — purpose-built firewall and routing appliances:

• OPNSense 25.x
• PFSense CE 2.7.2

Clicking an image shows a description in the panel on the right. Step 4 unlocks once an image is selected.

Step 4 — Authentication

Choose how you'll authenticate to this VM. The options available depend on the operating system you selected in Step 3.

Username — for Linux images, you can customize the login username that gets created on the VM. A default is pre-filled based on the image (e.g., ubuntu). Leave it as-is or change it to something your team prefers. Usernames must be 3–20 characters, start with a letter or underscore, and contain only letters, digits, underscores, or hyphens.

SSH Key (Recommended) — available for Linux images that support cloud-init. Select a key from your SSH Keys library using the dropdown. If you've set a default key, it's pre-selected automatically.

Password — set a password for SSH or console access. You can let GPCN™ auto-generate a strong password, or specify your own. Copy it before you deploy — GPCN™ doesn't store passwords.

Step 5 unlocks once authentication is configured.

Step 5 — Name Your VM(s)

Enter a descriptive name for your VM. Names:

• May contain letters, numbers, spaces, and hyphens
• Maximum 80 characters
• Must be unique within your account

A live character counter below the field shows your progress (e.g., 12/80 characters).

When deploying multiple VMs in Step 7, GPCN™ automatically appends a numeric suffix — for example, entering web-server creates web-server-1, web-server-2, etc. Enter only the base name.

Step 6 unlocks as soon as you type a valid name.

Step 6 — Assign to Resource Group (Optional)

Optionally assign the VM to a resource group to keep your resources organized. Use the dropdown to select from available resource groups, or leave it as No resource group assigned to skip.

See Resource Groups for details.

This step is optional and is marked complete automatically.

Step 7 — Additional Configuration (Optional)

Select Click to Expand to reveal networking and instance count options. This step is optional — defaults are applied if you leave it collapsed.

Number of VMs to Deploy

Use the + and − buttons to deploy multiple identical VMs in a single operation, useful for load-balanced clusters or redundant pairs. You can deploy up to 10 VMs at once. Each VM receives a unique name based on your Step 5 base name and its own IP address.

Network Options

Your VM is automatically connected to the Default Network as its Primary interface. To customize:

• Add networks — click the network selector bar to attach additional private networks, up to 5 interfaces total
• Reorder — drag entries to change priority; the top entry is always marked Primary
• Remove — click the × on any non-primary network to detach it before deployment

Allocate Public IP

Toggle on to assign a publicly routable IP address to each VM's primary interface. When off (default), VMs have outbound internet access via the network's built-in SNAT but are not directly reachable from the internet.

Step 8 — Review & Deploy

Review the Configuration Summary before committing. The summary is organized into five sections:

Section	What to check
General	VM name, quantity, resource group
Location	Country, region, data center
VM Configuration	Size, OS image, vCPUs, memory, disk
Authentication	Auth method and SSH key name (for cloud-init images)
Networking	Attached networks, public IP status

If anything is incorrect, scroll up to the relevant step — all previous steps remain editable until you click Deploy.

Click Deploy Virtual Machine to start provisioning. The VM appears in your list with a Starting status. VM provisioning typically completes within 1–3 minutes.

Next Steps

• Manage VMs — start, stop, upgrade, and delete your VMs
• Console Access — connect to your VM via the GPCN™ console
• Network Interfaces — add or remove networks after creation