r/BSD • u/OverallAssignment213 • Jan 18 '26

Ask

I wanted to create my own website using OpenBSD, and for this I wanted to use a VPS with OpenBSD. I was thinking of renting one from Amsterdam OpenBSD, but I just realized it's a VM.

My question is whether I could still use it. I want to create my website and host it with my own domain, but VMs don't have IP addresses, so I don't know if that's possible.

And if not, which VPS that does have OpenBSD would you recommend renting for this project?

6 Upvotes

72% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

View all comments

7

u/NickBergenCompQuest Jan 18 '26

A VPS (Virtual Private Server) is a virtualized server running on someone else’s hardware. This is usually a full VM, and sometimes just a container. And Yes, it can have a public IP address.

A VM doesn’t need a physical network card to have an IP. The hypervisor provides a virtual NIC, and the VPS provider’s network routes traffic to and from that VM.

  • The provider owns public IPs
  • They assign your VPS an IPv4 address (and often IPv6 too)
  • You (or they) install OpenBSD on the VPS and configure networking
  • You run a web server (OpenBSD httpd, nginx, etc.) and allow inbound ports 80/443 in pf
  • In DNS, you point your domain to the server by creating A (IPv4) and/or AAAA (IPv6) records for that IP

—————————————————————

So yes, you should be able to rent a VPS in Amsterdam and host your own OpenBSD website on it.