Installing OpenBSD on a Vultr Instance

Once you've signed up with Vultr, follow these instructions in order to get a custom ISO set up with OpenBSD 6.0 (or a different version).

Next, start a server with a custom ISO set to install<OpenBSD version>. Click the "View Console" icon in the upper right corner of the screen. This will take you to a new window containing an in-browser terminal. Once it's done logging boot-up steps, you should be prompted with OpenBSD's "Install, Upgrade, or Auto-install" window. Select "(I) Install".

More complete information about installing OpenBSD found here. The following instructions focus more on avoiding time-sucking gotchas than comprehensiveness.

The OpenBSD install wizard will prompt you a bunch of times during this process. Feel free to read about and finagle with settings here, but you're safe using defaults for almost everything. When I go through this process, I only set a few non-default settings: add a non-root user with a password, enable sshd to run on startup, and prevent root SSH login. Also note that at some point the install wizard will prompt you if you want to continue installing OpenBSD from an install disk without a verified signature. Rather than try to explain this myself, I'll quote from the OpenBSD install FAQ.

The verification process consists of fetching the SHA256.sig file, fetching all the install files to the local hard disk, then verifying their signatures.

The installXX.iso and installXX.fs images do not contain an SHA256.sig file, and the installer will complain that it can't check the signatures. It is not possible for the installer to verify the sets with these images. After all, if someone were to make a rogue installXX.iso file, they could certainly change the installer to say the files were legitimate. Thus, you must verify installer downloads separately.

If you want to do this verification, you can follow these instructions on your local computer.

Congratulations! You've hopefully finished going through the install wizard and have been told to reboot in order to have a working version of OpenBSD. Before you do so, make sure to go back to Vultr's config page for your server and remove the custom ISO from this server. If you don't do this, you'll find yourself back at the OpenBSD install window after you reboot. Once you've done this, reboot.

You should now be able to SSH to your server using the IP address provided by Vultr. I usually finish my setup process by adding my SSH public key to ~/.ssh/authorized_keys in my home directory on the OpenBSD server so I can SSH to the instance without entering my password every time.