Guide
Training

Get started

Suggest Edits

Our goal is to make cloud computing simple, accessible, and affordable. To this end, our platform offers a variety of user-friendly cloud solutions, all of which have clear and predictable pricing and can be managed using an intuitive browser-based interface (Cloud Manager), the command line (the Linode CLI), or programmatically through an API (the Linode API). This guide covers signing up for an account, accessing Cloud Manager, creating your first services, and understanding how billing works.

  1. Sign Up for an Account
  2. Navigate Cloud Manager
  3. Create your first Compute Instance
  4. Create additional services
  5. Understand billing
  6. Explore our guides

Sign up for an account

First, you need to create an account to start using our services. If you already have an account, you can skip to the next section.

  1. Open a web browser and navigate to login.linode.com/signup. If you are not already logged in to an account, the Create an Account form is displayed.

  2. Enter your email address, a unique username, and a strong password. Alternatively, you can sign up using your existing Google or GitHub account. When using another provider, you are prompted for a username in a separate step. For password requirements, see Password requirements and recommendations.

  3. A confirmation email is sent to your email address shortly after. Click the link in that email to confirm your email address.

  4. In the Security section of the signup process, input your phone number. Phone numbers as a measure to verify identity and prevent fraud. Once a phone number is provided, a verification code is sent to that number as an SMS text message. Enter this code into the signup form.

    📘

    This phone number provides our team with a secure method of verifying your identity as the owner of the newly created user account. We will only ever use this phone number to verify your identity by sending a verification code as an SMS message. See Phone Verification for more details.

  5. Within the Billing section, select your payment method and enter your billing address details. We accepts credit/debit cards and PayPal on sign up. See the Billing and Payments guide to learn more about each of these methods. You must also accept the Master Services Agreement.

    📘

    Your payment method is used to verify your identity and to keep your account secure. Once your account is activated you can change your payment method at anytime.

    You'll only get charged when you deploy a paid service.

  6. Most accounts are activated instantly and you can start adding services right away. A small number of accounts may require manual review before activation.

🚧

Email restrictions on our Platform

In an effort to fight spam originating from our platform, outbound connections on ports 25, 465, and 587 are blocked by default on Compute Instances for some new accounts. These restrictions prevent applications from sending email. If you intend to send email from a Compute Instance, see Send email on the Linode platform to learn more about our email policies and to request the removal of these restrictions.

Once your account has been created, consider enabling 2FA to prevent unauthorized access. Anyone that has access to your account may be able to delete your services, add new ones, and reset the root password on your Compute Instances to gain access to them. See Cloud Manager Security Controls for instructions on enabling 2FA. If you are logging in with a third party provider, consider adding 2FA through that provider.

📘

Single sign-on (SSO) with ​Akamai​ Control Center

You can log in to Cloud Manager using your ​Akamai​ Control Center account, provided your user email address is identical within both systems. To use this feature, select ​Akamai​ Control Center as the provider when logging in to Cloud Manager. You are automatically logged in to the Cloud Manager user that matches the email for the currently logged in Control Center user. If multiple Cloud Manager users match this email address, you can select which user to log in as. For more details, see Single sign-on (SSO) with ​Akamai​ Control Center.

Navigate Cloud Manager

Cloud Manager is the primary gateway to our platform. It enables you to manage your account, view your bills, add services, and much more. Here are some of the main sections you might want to look through:

  • Linodes: View a list of your Compute Instances. Clicking on one takes you to its details page, where you can power it on or off, reboot it, resize it, access the console, change its configuration, attach Block Storage volumes, and lots more.

  • Account: View your account, billing information, payment methods, and previous invoices. You can also add additional users to your account.

  • Help & Support: Search through our guides, find answers on the Community Site, or open a ticket to reach our 24/7 award-winning Support Team.

For a full overview of Cloud Manager and its core features, see the Overview of Cloud Manager guide.

Create your first Compute Instance

Compute Instances are virtual machines that can be used for nearly any purpose. Many of our customers use them to host websites and applications, and they can also be used for development workloads, game servers, big data processing, machine learning, scientific processing, and much more. They come in a few different types, including: Dedicated CPU, Shared CPU, Premium, High Memory, and GPU.

Each plan type is tailored for certain workloads. See the guides below to learn more about creating a Compute Instance, configuring and securing it after deployment, and selecting a data center for your plan.

Create additional services

In addition to Compute Instances, we offer many other services that empower you to get the most out of cloud computing. Take a look through the list below to determine if any of them might be useful to you.

Compute

  • LKE (Linode Kubernetes Engine): Managed Kubernetes clusters that simplify container orchestration.

Databases

  • Managed Databases: Reliable, performant, highly available, and fully managed database clusters to support production database workloads.

Storage

  • Block Storage: Scalable, high-speed, fault-tolerant, and portable (detachable) storage volumes used to add additional storage to a Compute Instance.
  • Object Storage: S3-compatible object storage service that can be used independently of a Compute Instance.
  • Backups: Fully managed automatic daily, weekly, and biweekly backups of your Compute Instances.
  • Images: Create preconfigured disk images (or upload image files) that can be rapidly deployed to new or existing Compute Instances.

Networking

  • NodeBalancers: Managed cloud-based load balancing service used with Compute Instances to enable high availability and horizontal scaling.
  • Cloud Firewalls: A free cloud-based firewall service that can be used to secure any Compute Instance.
  • DNS Manager: A free comprehensive domain and DNS management service for customers.
  • VLANs: Private L2 networks to secure traffic between Compute Instances.

Understand billing

Services are billed to your primary payment method at the end of each month (or when your accrued charges reach your billing limit). This means you can continuously add, modify, and remove services throughout the month. After the month is over, you receive an invoice for *the hourly usage of each service up to the monthly cap*. In effect, billing is post-paid and pro-rated. See the below resources for more billing information and detailed hourly and monthly pricing. Note that plans and prices may vary by region.

Keep in mind that charges will accrue for any active service, even if it is powered off or otherwise not in use. This includes Compute Instances that have been powered off as well as any service you might have added to the account but are not using.

Explore our guides

Our documentation not only includes guides for our core products and services, but general guides on Linux, the command-line, networking, security, version control, databases, and much more. Learn how to deploy a WordPress One-Click App, run a VPN, install a file storage platform, or even host a website using Object Storage. Whatever cloud computing use cases you have in mind, you can likely do it using Linode, and our guides are a great place to start.

Updated about 2 months ago