Create a Bare Metal server

A Bare Metal server is a physical machine allocated entirely to a single tenant, with no hypervisor layer. All CPU, RAM, and storage resources are dedicated — not shared with other users.

Info

Bare Metal servers require a quota increase before creation. Select a region and server type in the creation form, then click Send quota request in the Quota Increase Required block. Requests are typically reviewed within 5 minutes, with a 95% approval rate.

Step 1. Open the creation page

In the Gcore Customer Portal, navigate to Cloud > Bare Metal and click Create Bare Metal.

Step 2. Select a region

Choose the region where the server will be deployed.

Step 3. Select an image

Select the architecture — x86-64 or ARM — then choose an OS image from one of three tabs:

• Distributions — prepared OS templates (Ubuntu, CentOS, Debian, Windows, and others).
• Marketplace — pre-configured application images.
• Custom Images — images previously uploaded to the account. Only images built for Bare Metal servers are compatible; standard VM images do not work. Build requirements are covered in image upload.

Step 4. Select a server type

Server types are grouped into three categories:

• High frequency — high clock-speed CPUs for latency-sensitive workloads.
• Infrastructure — high core count and NVMe storage for compute-intensive tasks.
• Storage — large-capacity drives for data-heavy workloads.

All types require a quota. After selecting a type, a Quota Increase Required block appears with a Send quota request button. The remaining sections of the form unlock once the quota is approved.

Step 5. Configure network interfaces

After quota approval, configure network interfaces. Up to six networks can be attached. An external network cannot be added after the server is created.

1. Select the Network type: Public, Private, or Dedicated public.

2. In the IP Family section, select the IP version: IPv4, IPv6, or Dual (IPv4 + IPv6).

3. (Optional) Enable Use reserved IP to assign a reserved IP address to the server.

4. (Optional) Enable Advanced DDoS Protection for enhanced security.

For a private interface, also configure a network and subnetwork:

Info

With both a public and a private interface, disable the default gateway on the private subnetwork and assign a floating IP to the private interface to avoid routing conflicts.

Configure a network

Select an existing network from the dropdown, or click the Private network radio button to create a new one:

1. Enter the network name.

2. Confirm that the Bare Metal network toggle is enabled — this is required to connect Bare Metal servers to the network.

3. (Optional) Enable Add tags to attach metadata to the network.

4. Click Create network.

Configure a subnetwork

Info

With multiple subnetworks, set only one as routable. Multiple routable subnetworks cause default gateway conflicts that prevent connecting to the server.

Select an existing subnetwork from the dropdown. Choosing Automatic assigns the subnetwork with the most available resources.

To create a new subnetwork, click Add a new subnetwork and follow the steps in Create a subnetwork.

A dedicated public network provides an individual address pool, allowing multiple public IPs on a single network port — useful for high-traffic applications, load distribution, or virtualization scenarios where each workload needs a distinct public IP.

Interface order

Bare Metal servers use LACP bonding: all physical ports are aggregated into a single bond (bond0). Each sub-interface added in the creation form becomes a logical port on top of that bond.

• Sub-Interface 1 (public) maps to bond0.
• Sub-Interface 2 (private) maps to a VLAN sub-interface named bond0.<vlan_id> (for example, bond0.2853).

After the server is created, the Networking tab shows the sub-interfaces in the same order as they were added during setup. Running ip a in the OS confirms the mapping:

$ ip a
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 ...
2: enp1s0f0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,SLAVE,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 ... master bond0
4: enp1s0f1: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,SLAVE,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 ... master bond0
5: bond0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,MASTER,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue state UP
    link/ether 7c:c2:55:6c:ad:b0 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    inet 85.234.84.162/24 brd 85.234.84.255 scope global bond0
6: bond0.2853@bond0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue state UP
    link/ether 7c:c2:55:6c:ad:b0 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    inet 10.0.0.125/24 brd 10.0.0.255 scope global dynamic bond0.2853

Sub-Interface 1 (bond0) is the public interface; Sub-Interface 2 (bond0.2853) is the private interface. The order set at creation determines routing priority: the first sub-interface has higher priority for outbound traffic than subsequent ones. The sub-interface order cannot be changed after the server is created.

Step 6. Configure access

Select an SSH key for Linux servers, or set a password for Windows servers.

To add a new key, follow the steps in Connect via SSH.

For Windows servers, the password must be 8–16 characters and may contain Latin letters (a-zA-Z), digits (0-9), and special characters (!#$%&'()*+,-./:;<=>?@[]^_{|}~). Connect via the portal console or RDP.

Step 7. Configure additional options

In the Additional options section, optionally provide a cloud-init script in the User data field to automate initial configuration — install packages, create users, or run commands on first boot.

Step 8. Set quantity and name

Specify the number of servers (up to 10, subject to quota) and the name template. Click Create Server — the server provisions in the cloud.

Multi-bond network configuration

Bare Metal servers support multiple network bonds, where each bond is a group of LACP-aggregated physical ports. With a multi-bond setup, traffic for different networks is isolated at the hardware level, which improves availability and throughput. Multi-bond configuration is available on request — contact Gcore support to enable it.

After the server is deployed, open the server details and go to the Networking tab. Each bond appears as a separate interface block labeled Interface N (Trunk Interface N).

Each interface block shows the sub-interfaces assigned to that bond — a sub-interface is the logical port that carries traffic for a specific network. The table for each sub-interface includes the IP address, network, subnetwork, MAC address, CIDR, and floating IP assignment.

To add a sub-interface to a bond, click Add Sub-Interface in the corresponding interface block and configure the network settings.

Limitations

• External volumes cannot be attached to Bare Metal servers.
• Volume configuration cannot be changed after provisioning.
• No more than six networks can be attached.
• After deployment, private network interfaces can only be attached or detached manually via the OS.