OCI Ampere ARM Instance Auto-Provisioner

A bash script that automatically attempts to create an Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) "Always Free" Ampere ARM instance by cycling through all Availability Domains until capacity is found.

What This Script Does

Oracle's Always Free Ampere A1 instances are highly sought after but often show "Out of capacity" errors. This script:

• ✅ Config file based - Set your parameters once in config.json
• ✅ Loops through all Availability Domains in your region
• ✅ Continuously retries until an instance is successfully created
• ✅ Rate limiting protection - Automatically handles "TooManyRequests" errors
• ✅ Shows full server responses - See exactly what OCI returns
• ✅ Timestamps and attempt counts for tracking progress
• ✅ Validates inputs before starting
• ✅ Can run for hours or days until capacity is found

⚠️ Important Notes

• This can take a LONG time: Days or even weeks depending on region and demand
• Leave it running: Use screen or tmux to keep it running in the background
• Always Free limits: You get up to 4 OCPUs and 24GB RAM total across all A1 instances
• Rate limiting: Script waits 90 seconds between attempts, 5 minutes if rate limited
• Configuration saved: Your settings are stored in config.json (keep it secure!)

---

Prerequisites (One-Time Setup)

You must complete these steps manually before running the script.

1. Install Required Tools

Install OCI CLI:

Linux/macOS:

bash -c "$(curl -L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/oracle/oci-cli/master/scripts/install/install.sh)"

Windows:

• Download the installer from: https://docs.oracle.com/en-us/iaas/Content/API/SDKDocs/cliinstall.htm
• Or use PowerShell:

powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "iex ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://raw.githubusercontent.com/oracle/oci-cli/master/scripts/install/install.ps1'))"

Install jq (JSON processor):

# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt install jq

# macOS
brew install jq

# Windows (Git Bash/WSL)
# Download from: https://stedolan.github.io/jq/download/

2. Configure OCI CLI

Run the setup command in your terminal:

oci setup config

This interactive setup will ask you for:

• User OCID: Your user's unique identifier
• Tenancy OCID: Your account's unique identifier
• Region: Your home region (e.g., us-ashburn-1)

The setup will generate an API key pair and save it to ~/.oci/oci_api_key.pem.

3. Upload Your Public API Key

1. Go to your OCI Console
2. Click your profile icon (top right) → User Settings
3. Under Resources, click API Keys
4. Click Add API Key
5. Select Paste Public Key
6. Copy the contents of ~/.oci/oci_api_key_public.pem and paste it
7. Click Add

---

Configuration Setup

Step 1: Create Your Config File

Copy the example config and edit it with your details:

cp config.example.json config.json
nano config.json  # or use your preferred editor

Step 2: Fill in the Required Parameters

Here's how to get each parameter using OCI CLI or the console:

🔹 compartment_id (Tenancy OCID)

# List compartments
oci iam compartment list --all

Console: Identity & Security → Compartments → Copy OCID

---

🔹 image_id (ARM64 Image OCID)

# List images
oci compute image list --compartment-id <tenancy-ocid> --shape "VM.Standard.A1.Flex" --region <region> --output table

Console: Compute → Instances → Create Instance → Change Image → Copy OCID

Note: Image IDs are region-specific!

---

🔹 subnet_id (Subnet OCID)

# List subnets
oci network subnet list --compartment-id <tenancy-ocid> --region <region> --output table

Console: Networking → Virtual Cloud Networks → Select VCN → Subnets → Copy OCID

---

🔹 region (OCI Region)

# List regions
oci iam region list --query "data[].name" --output table

Common: us-ashburn-1, us-phoenix-1, eu-marseille-1, eu-frankfurt-1, uk-london-1, ap-tokyo-1

---

🔹 ssh_key_path (SSH Public Key Path)

# Check existing keys
ls ~/.ssh/*.pub

# Generate new key (if needed)
ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "your_email@example.com"

Path: ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub or ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

---

🔹 Other Parameters

{
  "ocpu_count": 4,              // 1-4 (max: 4)
  "memory_in_gbs": 24,          // 6-24 (max: 24)
  "display_name": "ampere-vm",  // Instance name
  "rate_limit_wait": 90,        // Seconds between attempts
  "rate_limit_cooldown": 300    // Cooldown after rate limit
}

---

Example config.json

{
  "compartment_id": "ocid1.compartment.oc1..aaaaaaaxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx",
  "image_id": "ocid1.image.oc1.REGION.aaaaaaaxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx",
  "subnet_id": "ocid1.subnet.oc1.REGION.aaaaaaaxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx",
  "region": "us-ashburn-1",
  "ocpu_count": 4,
  "memory_in_gbs": 24,
  "ssh_key_path": "~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub",
  "display_name": "AlwaysFree-ARM-Instance",
  "rate_limit_wait": 90,
  "rate_limit_cooldown": 300
}

---

How to Use the Script

1. Make the script executable (Linux/macOS/Git Bash)

chmod +x create-ampere-instance.sh

2. Run the script

With default config.json:

./create-ampere-instance.sh

With custom config file:

./create-ampere-instance.sh my-config.json

3. Monitor the output

Example output:

--- Oracle Cloud ARM Instance Provisioner ---
Loading configuration from: config.json
Found 1 ADs: vBLH:EU-MARSEILLE-1-AD-1
Configuration: VM.Standard.A1.Flex | 4 OCPUs | 24 GB | eu-marseille-1
⚠️  Rate Limiting: 90s between attempts
------------------------------------------------
[2025-11-06 15:30:45] Attempt #1 - Trying AD: vBLH:EU-MARSEILLE-1-AD-1
⏳ Sending request to OCI...

━━━━━━━━━━ SERVER RESPONSE ━━━━━━━━━━
{"code": "InternalError", "message": "Out of host capacity"}
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

❌ No capacity in vBLH:EU-MARSEILLE-1-AD-1
⏳ Waiting 90 seconds before next attempt...

4. Keep it running in the background

# Using screen (recommended)
screen -S oci-provision
./create-ampere-instance.sh
# Ctrl+A then D to detach, screen -r oci-provision to reattach

# Using tmux
tmux new -s oci-provision
./create-ampere-instance.sh
# Ctrl+B then D to detach, tmux attach -t oci-provision to reattach

# Using nohup
nohup ./create-ampere-instance.sh > provision.log 2>&1 &
tail -f provision.log  # Check progress

---

Troubleshooting

Issue	Solution
jq not installed	sudo apt install jq or brew install jq
Can't fetch ADs	Check region name and ~/.oci/config file
TooManyRequests	Normal! Script auto-waits 5 min. Don't spam requests.
Out of capacity	Expected! Keep running. May take days/weeks. Try lower resources.
Fails immediately	Check config.json syntax, validate OCIDs, verify SSH key path exists
Debug mode	Run: bash -x create-ampere-instance.sh

---

Configuration Tips

Always Free Tier Limits for Ampere A1

• Total across all A1 instances: 4 OCPUs and 24 GB RAM
• You can create:
  • 1 instance with 4 OCPUs + 24 GB
  • 2 instances with 2 OCPUs + 12 GB each
  • 4 instances with 1 OCPU + 6 GB each

Recommended Settings for First Try

• OCPUs: 4 (maximum)
• Memory: 24 GB (maximum)
• This maximizes your chances as Oracle often releases capacity in full increments

If Struggling to Get Capacity

Try adjusting your config.json:

• OCPUs: 1 or 2 (instead of 4)
• Memory: 6 or 12 GB (instead of 24)
• Different region: Some regions have more capacity
• Increase wait times: Set rate_limit_wait to 120-180 seconds