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Getting started_

From a new account to your first resource takes about ten minutes. Everything here is done once.

5 sections Suggest an edit

1. Create and secure your account

  1. Go to Create account. Enter an Account name (your team or company), your name, email and a password of at least 15 characters.
  2. Open the link in the verification email and choose Verify and continue. The account exists from this point.
  3. Sign in. As the account owner you must set up two-factor authentication: scan the QR code with an authenticator app, save the recovery codes somewhere safe, and enter the current six-digit code.

You land on Overview, the dashboard. It is empty until you create something.

Why two-factor is required. Owners can create billed resources, reveal app and database passwords and delete machines. A password alone is not enough protection for that.

2. Add an SSH public key

Virtual machines built from a managed image sign you in with SSH keys only; there are no passwords. Add a key before you create a machine.

  1. Open the account menu (your initials, top right) → Settings → SSH keys.
  2. Choose Add SSH key, give it a name (the device it lives on is a good one), paste the public key (ssh-ed25519 AAAA… or similar) and choose Add key.
  3. Check the fingerprint in the list against your own: ssh-keygen -lf ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub.

Never paste a private key into Fresh or send one to support. If you have no key yet, ssh-keygen -t ed25519 makes one; the public half is the .pub file.

3. Add a payment method

Fresh bills by the second, so a card must be on file before a machine, app or database is created. Add one from Settings → Billing → Add payment method, or let the create flow ask for it at the end. The card is saved through Stripe Checkout and nothing is charged when you add it.

Saving your first card adds £8 of credit to the account, valid for 60 days. It is used before your card is charged, and covers a month of the smallest machine or several days of a larger one. Each account and card can receive it once.

4. Find your way around the console

The dashboard: tiles for machines, apps, databases and this month's cost, everything running in one table sorted by cost, and the billing and activity panels The dashboard in dark theme
The dashboard, shown with sample data.
  • Overview (the dashboard): everything you run in one table with what each has cost this month, anything that needs attention, your billing so far and recent activity. A new account also sees a short set-up checklist.
  • Machines, Apps, Databases: one list each, with a create button.
  • Networking: the public IPv4 addresses attached to your machines. DNS: domains whose DNS Fresh hosts, and reverse DNS. Images: the operating-system images you can build machines from.
  • On the right of the bar: Jump to…, which finds any page, machine, app, database or domain by name (press / or Ctrl/⌘-K), then Billing (owners: month-to-date usage, credit, the next invoice, and Stripe's portal for cards and past invoices), Usage (transfer, throughput, disk and compute for every machine, app and database) and Activity, a searchable history of everything done in the account.
  • The account menu (your initials) holds Settings (SSH keys, team, security).

The theme toggle next to your initials switches between light and dark; the choice is remembered in your browser.

5. What to create first