🏗 OVH — ordering & commissioning.

This page documents our recommended flow for ordering and commissioning OVH dedicated servers. It covers SSH key preparation, interactive/template installs, partitioning guidance for signing/validating/core servers, and post-install hardening steps.

🔑 Prepare SSH key first

In your Mac, create an SSH key pair for OVH access.

ssh-keygen -t ed25519 ~/.ssh/id_tempOVH -C "yourname@attestant.io"
cat ~/.ssh/id_tempOVH.pub

In the OVH manager choose Public key as the login method and paste the public key to avoid emailed root passwords.

🛒 Ordering checklist

  1. Open OVH Manager (use a private browser window and 2FA).
  2. Choose Dedicated → select product and location.
  3. Choose Attestant-approved Ubuntu LTS image (or Rescue system if pre-configuration is needed).
  4. Attach extra NVMe disks if required for validating or DB servers.
  5. Select Public key and paste your public key.
  6. Complete checkout and wait (typically 5–15 minutes) for provisioning.

🧭 Install / OS steps

After the server appears in the OVH dashboard, start the OS install from the Manager UI:

  1. Dashboard → Dedicated Servers → select server → System (OS) → Install.
  2. Choose the Attestant-approved OS.
  3. If using a template, either pick a saved template or select “Install from an OVHcloud template”.
  4. When customizing partitions, remove swap partitions (we use swap files) and set partition sizes per the role.

Example partition layout (validating servers):

PART /boot  ext4 4G
PART /      ext4 60G
PART /home  ext4 all

Notes:

  • Use the template save option if you'll provision more servers with the same layout.

  • For Scale-a3 or large-core machines, configure the small OS disks first (e.g., the two 500GB drives) and then configure the large NVMe array per the DB runbook.

✅ Post-setup checks

  • Confirm OS: cat /etc/os-release
  • Verify disk layout: lsblk, cat /proc/mdstat
  • Check RAID: mdadm --detail /dev/mdX
  • Confirm that swap partition was removed and no unexpected swap exists: swapon --show
  • Ensure SSH key login works for root before removing any admin user.

⚠️ Tips & troubleshooting

  • If the install UI doesn't present the PART entries as expected, retry with Rescue mode or contact OVH support.
  • For complex DB/core servers, follow the dedicated ChainDB/Postgres commissioning runbook after the OS install.
  • Keep a copy of any OVH-supplied rescue credentials until the server is fully configured and handed over to Ansible.
  • OVH Manager: https://www.ovh.com/manager/dedicated/
  • OVH docs & install templates: https://docs.ovh.com

 


 

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