Create the Ubuntu Droplet

Start by creating a project in DigitalOcean, then create the Droplet inside it. A project is just a folder for related resources. When the server, its volumes and its backups live together, you won’t forget one of them later.

The choices in the Create form

Use what you decided in the planning lesson:

• the current Ubuntu LTS image
• the region and Basic plan you wrote down
• SSH key authentication, with the key whose fingerprint you verified
• improved monitoring turned on
• automated backups turned on, if the server will hold data you can’t recreate
• a hostname that says what the machine does, like notes-web-1

Skip the prebuilt application images (the “Marketplace” ones with Node or Docker preinstalled). They save ten minutes and hide what got installed. Starting from plain Ubuntu means we see and control every service on the box.

Verify what you got

When the Droplet reports it’s ready, copy the public IPv4 address into your private notes. Then go back through the control panel and confirm the region, image, size, project, SSH key, backup setting and monitoring setting are what you meant.

Don’t connect until the panel says the Droplet is ready. In the next lesson, once you’re logged in, run:

cat /etc/os-release
uname -m
hostnamectl --static
ip -brief address

You should see your Ubuntu LTS release, x86_64, the hostname you typed, and the public IP the panel shows you. If any of those is wrong, stop. Don’t configure a server whose identity is off.

Mistakes are cheapest right now

The two common mistakes are picking the wrong SSH key and picking a region that’s far from your users or your database. Both are trivial to fix today: this Droplet has nothing on it. Destroy it and create the right one. Don’t build weeks of work on the wrong foundation because you didn’t want to waste three minutes.

Later, when the server holds data, destroying it is no longer a rollback. You’d have to back up, build a replacement, test it and move traffic. That’s why we check everything now.

Save the Droplet IP and the SSH key fingerprint in your notes. Then compare each control panel choice with the capacity plan you wrote. Fix any mismatch before the first login.