Cloud setup

Hetzner

Deploy Dalmatian on a Hetzner Cloud server.

Before you start

A Hetzner Cloud account. Sign up at console.hetzner.cloud if you don't have one. A card on file is required.
A CX22 (2 vCPU / 4 GB) or CX32 (4 vCPU / 8 GB) server.
An LLM credential. A ChatGPT Plus or Pro subscription, or an API key from OpenAI, Anthropic, or Google. You'll add this after the server is up.

Step 01 — Hetzner

Create your server

From the Hetzner Cloud Console, open or create a project, then click Add Server.

Pick a location

Scroll down to choose the location nearest where you'll use the dashboard.

The Location step in Hetzner's Create a server form with Hillsboro, OR selected

Choose Regular Performance

Scroll back up to Type and select Regular Performance.

The Type step with Regular Performance selected under Shared Resources

Pick the CX21 plan

Scroll down within the Type section and choose CX21 (3 vCPU / 4 GB) or larger. The minimum requirement for RAM is 4 GB.

The plan list with CPX21 (3 vCPU / 4 GB) selected

Choose Ubuntu 24.04

Under Image, select Ubuntu 24.04. Dalmatian requires this version.

The Image step with Ubuntu 24.04 selected under OS Images

Include a public IPv4 Address

Under Networking, make sure the checkbox for Public IPv4 is checked.

The Networking step with Public IPv4 checked

Paste the install script under Cloud config

Have your invite code ready (from your invite email or message). You'll drop it into the command below in place of YOUR_INVITE_CODE.

Scroll to Cloud config (Hetzner's name for cloud-init user data) and paste the snippet. The server runs it on first boot. It installs Dalmatian, provisions HTTPS, and starts the dashboard.

#!/bin/bash
curl -fsSL https://get.dalmatian.dev/alpha?token=YOUR_INVITE_CODE | bash

The Cloud config step with the install snippet pasted into the cloud-init field

Name it and create

Any server name works. Click Create & Buy now and wait about 30 seconds for provisioning.

The Name step with the server name ubuntu-4gb-dalmatian-1 filled in

Note the server's IPv4 address

The IP is shown on the server's overview page and is of the format 1.2.3.4 where 1, 2, 3, and 4 are other numbers. Copy it; you'll need it to open the dashboard.

Next: open the dashboard

The server is provisioned, but the install script needs up to ten minutes to finish setting up Dalmatian and HTTPS. After that the rest of setup is the same on every cloud. Continue in the Dashboard guide.