Create a Linux-based instance Connect to your instance Next steps

Create Linux/Unix instances with apps on Lightsail

Create a Linux/Unix-based Amazon Lightsail instance (a virtual private server) running an application like WordPress or a development stack like LAMP. After your instance starts running, you can connect to it via SSH without leaving Lightsail. Here's how.

To create a Windows-based instance, see Get started with Windows-based instances in Amazon Lightsail.

Create a Linux-based instance

On the home page, choose Create instance.
Select a location for your instance (an AWS Region and Availability Zone).

Choose Change AWS Region and Availability Zone to create your instance in another location.
Optionally, you can change the Availability Zone.

Choose Change your Availability Zone.
Choose the Linux platform.
Pick an application (Apps + OS) or an operating system (OS Only).

To learn more about Lightsail instance images, see Choose an Amazon Lightsail instance image.
Choose your instance plan.

Choose whether your instance uses dual-stack (IPv4 and IPv6), or IPv6-only networking. Some Lightsail blueprints don't support IPv6-only networking at this time. To see which blueprints support IPv6-only networking see Review the Lightsail instance blueprint offerings.

You can try the $5 USD Lightsail plan free for one month (up to 750 hours). We'll credit one free month to your account. Learn more on our Lightsail pricing page.

Note
As part of the AWS Free Tier, you can get started with Amazon Lightsail for free on select instance bundles. For more information, see AWS Free Tier on the Amazon Lightsail Pricing page.
Enter a name for your instance.

Resource names:
- Must be unique within each AWS Region in your Lightsail account.
- Must contain 2 to 255 characters.
- Must start and end with an alphanumeric character or number.
- Can include alphanumeric characters, numbers, periods, dashes, and underscores.
Choose one of the following options to add tags to your instance:
- Add key-only tags. Enter your new tag into the tag key text box, and press Enter. Choose X to remove any tags you don't want to keep.
- Create a key-value tag, then enter a key into the Key text box, and a value into the Value text box. Key-value tags can only be added one at a time. Choose Add key-value tag to add additional key-value tags, or choose X to remove any tags you don't want to keep.
Note
For more information about key-only and key-value tags, see Tags.
Choose Create instance.

For advanced creation options, see Use a launch script to configure your Amazon Lightsail instance when it starts up or Set up SSH for your Linux/Unix-based Lightsail instances.

Within minutes, your Lightsail instance is ready and you can connect to it via SSH, without leaving Lightsail!

Connect to your instance

On the Lightsail home page, choose the menu on the right of your instance's name, and then choose Connect.

Alternately, you can open your instance management page and choose the Connect tab.

Note
To connect to your instance using an SSH client such as PuTTY, you can follow this procedure: Set up PuTTY to connect to your Lightsail instance.
Now you can type commands into the terminal and manage your Lightsail instance without setting up an SSH client.