Terrarium on DigitalOcean

Official references:

• How to Add SSH Keys to New or Existing Droplets
• Set up a Production-Ready Droplet
• Linux Images for Droplets
• How to Create and Set Up Volumes for Use with Droplets
• How to Mount Volumes
• doctl compute droplet create
• doctl compute volume create
• doctl compute volume-action attach

Recommended shape

• Ubuntu image: ubuntu-24-04-x64
• Boot disk: keep the normal Droplet root disk
• Data disk: add a separate DigitalOcean Volume for Terrarium ZFS
• Terrarium mode: --storage-mode disk

Console flow

1. Create or upload your SSH key in DigitalOcean.
2. Create a new Droplet with Ubuntu 24.04 and select that SSH key.
3. Create a separate Volume in the same region as the Droplet.
4. Attach the volume to the Droplet.
5. Make sure the volume is not left auto-formatted and auto-mounted for normal filesystem use before handing it to Terrarium.
6. SSH into the Droplet as root.
7. Run Terrarium and point it at the attached volume.

Example install:

curl -fsSL https://github.com/terion-name/terrarium/releases/latest/download/install.sh | bash -s -- \
  --email admin@your-domain.tld \
  --acme-email certs@your-domain.tld \
  --idp local \
  --storage-mode disk \
  --storage-source auto

auto works well here when the Droplet has exactly one extra attached volume.

doctl flow

Create or import the SSH key:

doctl compute ssh-key import terrarium --public-key-file ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub
doctl compute ssh-key list

Create the Volume:

doctl compute volume create terrarium-data \
  --region fra1 \
  --size 200

Create the Droplet with Ubuntu 24.04:

doctl compute droplet create terrarium-1 \
  --region fra1 \
  --size s-4vcpu-8gb \
  --image ubuntu-24-04-x64 \
  --ssh-keys <ssh-key-id-or-fingerprint>

Attach the Volume:

doctl compute volume-action attach <volume-id> <droplet-id> --wait

Then SSH in and install Terrarium:

curl -fsSL https://github.com/terion-name/terrarium/releases/latest/download/install.sh | bash -s -- \
  --email admin@your-domain.tld \
  --acme-email certs@your-domain.tld \
  --idp local \
  --storage-mode disk \
  --storage-source auto

Notes

• DigitalOcean volumes must live in the same region as the Droplet.
• DigitalOcean documents that control-panel-created volumes can auto-format and auto-mount on newer Ubuntu Droplets. Terrarium will wipe the selected data disk for ZFS anyway, so treat the attached volume as dedicated Terrarium storage and remove any normal filesystem mount config before handing it to Terrarium.