How to Purchase and Configure an Alibaba Cloud ECS Server

1. Purchase Alibaba Cloud ECS Server

Navigate to the Alibaba Cloud console and select ECS to create a new instance.

Click “Buy Now” and choose the payment method (monthly or yearly).

2. Server Configuration

Select region and zone close to your users; same zone for multiple servers enables internal networking.

Choose instance specifications based on testing or production needs; consider concurrency and possible stress testing.

Choose an OS image (CentOS, Ubuntu, Windows Server) and appropriate storage size (e.g., 40 GB for Linux, 60 GB for Windows).

Configure networking: create a VPC, set public bandwidth (1 Mbps for testing, 5 Mbps+ for production), and define security groups and optional elastic NICs.

Set login credentials, instance name, description, hostname, and optional advanced options.

3. Payment and Confirmation

Complete the purchase, after which the instance appears as “Purchase Successful”.

4. Configure Security Group

Access Network & Security → Security Group List ; create a new security group if none exists.

During instance creation, associate the instance with the desired security group.

Modify the security group to add inbound rules for required ports (e.g., 80 HTTP, 443 HTTPS, 22 SSH, 3389 RDP, 3306 MySQL).

Specify source IP ranges (e.g., 0.0.0.0/0 for open access or specific IPs for restricted access).

5. Additional Server Functions

Upgrade Configuration : Change instance type or increase bandwidth via the “Upgrade Configuration” option.

Upgrade Bandwidth : Temporarily increase bandwidth for a set period.

Reset Disk : Re‑initialize cloud disks (ensure backups first).

Change OS : Replace the operating system image.

6. SSH Access Tools

Use Alibaba Cloud’s web‑based SSH console or mobile app if no local SSH client is installed.

Install Xshell (or similar) for Windows to connect to Linux servers via the default SSH port 22.

Configure Xshell with the server’s IP, port, and credentials to manage the server remotely.