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Quickstart: deploy a pod
Five minutes. One pod. Live on the internet.
1. Sign in
Open console.microapps.io and sign in. (No account yet? Register here.)
2. Make sure you have credit
Click Billing in the side panel, or go straight to Billing.
You need at least $3 of credit to run a pod. If you're short, click Add credit and top up.
3. Create a pod
Click Pods in the side panel, then New at the top right of the pods table. You land on the create form. Fill it in:
| Field | Pick | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Workload | Ubuntu | The OS. MySQL here would give you a database pod instead. |
| Version | 24.04 | Ubuntu's versions are 22.04 and 24.04. |
| Compute | the smallest, 1 vCPU, 0.5GB RAM | The dropdown lists CPU and RAM combinations, not size names. Bump this up any time with a Resize. |
| Pod Name (optional) | my-app | Leave it blank and we name the pod for you. |
| Region | (nearest to you) | Where the pod runs. Required. |
| Username | (read-only) | ubuntu for an Ubuntu pod. This is who you log in as. |
| SSH key | (optional) | Paste a public key or pick a saved one. Skip it and we'll show you a login password once. |
| Network | (optional) | Attach a private network if you have one. Blank reuses your existing network in that Region, or creates one if you have none. |
| Firewall | (optional) | Blank creates a firewall that blocks all public traffic. Add your IP to its allow-list (Firewalls -> your pod's firewall -> add rule) before connecting over SSH or the public port. |
| Storage | 5 GB | Listed as plain sizes. You can resize the disk later, up or down. |
Network and Firewall only appear once you have one to choose, so a new account won't see them.
Click Create Pod.
4. Watch it come up
You come back to the pods table with your pod in it. Above the table are status tabs - All, Running, Off, Busy - each with a count. A pod being built is Busy: its Status reads Initializing with a spinner, then flips to Running, usually in under a minute.
Grab the password now if you see one
If you didn't add an SSH key, a one-time login password is shown in the toast in the bottom-right corner and never again. Copy it somewhere safe; hovering over the toast stops it fading. Added a key instead? Then there's no password to copy - you log in with the key.
Click the pod's name to open it. The tabs across the top are Overview, Metrics, Snapshots, Backups, Networking and Connection Strings. Everything you need to connect is on Overview, in the first card, Access:
| What | Where in the card |
|---|---|
| A ready-made SSH command with host, port and username already in it | The line at the top. Click it to copy. |
Username, Public Host, Ports (one private, one public) | The rows under it. Click any value to copy it. |
| The pod's Firewall | The last row, linked to the firewall's page |
5. Connect
Copy the command from the Access card and run it:
bash
ssh -p 3001 ubuntu@your-pod.microapps.ioSwap in the external port and public host shown on your pod. If it hangs and then times out, that is the firewall, not the pod - Connecting via SSH shows you where to add your IP.
Or skip SSH entirely and click Shell in the console for an in-browser terminal - no port, no client, no key required.
6. Verify it's yours
bash
uname -a
df -h --output=size,used,avail,pcent /
free -mLinux i-6a4d5b83b7006ccae6391810 6.8.0-79-generic #79-Ubuntu SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
Size Used Avail Use%
4.9G 1.1G 3.6G 23%
total used free shared buff/cache available
Mem: 512 70 381 0 61 442
Swap: 0 0 0512 MB of RAM and 5 GB of disk, exactly what you asked for. The hostname is generated and is not the name you gave the pod.
That's it. You have a pod. Billing is hourly from your credit for as long as it exists - see the pricing page for the rate. Have fun.