DigitalOcean — Setup

Overview

In this guide you will:

1. Create (or sign in to) a DigitalOcean account.
2. Generate a personal access token with Read & Write access.
3. End with that token, which you hand to the app in DigitalOcean — Key handoff.

The token is a single secret (no separate ID) — the same shape as a password for the DigitalOcean API.

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Prerequisites

• A DigitalOcean account (see Step 1 if you don’t have one).
• The PhoenixVPS app installed on your device.

Payment method required — but no EU-style ID check

DigitalOcean requires a payment method (card or PayPal) to activate an account, and new accounts can occasionally hit a short verification/fraud hold. Unlike Hetzner or Infomaniak, there is no photo-ID + selfie check. New accounts often include free signup credit.

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Step 1 — Create or sign in to your account

If you don’t have an account, go to https://www.digitalocean.com/ and sign up (email, Google, or GitHub), confirm your email, and add a payment method to activate it.

If you already have an account, sign in.

What you see: The DigitalOcean control panel (cloud.digitalocean.com).

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Step 2 — Open the API tokens page

In PhoenixVPS’s DigitalOcean panel, click Open DigitalOcean Console (opens the API tokens page). Or go directly to https://cloud.digitalocean.com/account/api/tokens.

What you see: A page titled Applications & API with three tabs — Tokens, OAuth Applications, Authorized Applications. You’re on Tokens. Click the blue Generate New Token button.

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Step 3 — Configure the token

The Create A New Personal Access Token form opens. Fill it in:

1. Token Name: type something you’ll recognise, such as PhoenixVPS.
2. Expiration: choose how long the token stays valid (the default is 90 days; you can pick up to 1 year, or no expiry). Note that when it expires you’ll repeat this setup.
3. Scopes: select Full Access.

Why Full Access: PhoenixVPS needs to create and delete droplets, SSH keys, firewalls, and tags. A Read Only token will be accepted but the app will fail when it tries to create a server.

For the security-conscious: Custom Scopes

Instead of Full Access you can pick Custom Scopes and grant only what PhoenixVPS uses: create/read/delete on droplet, ssh_key, firewall, and tag, plus read on regions and sizes and account. Token scopes cannot be edited after creation, so if in doubt, Full Access is simplest.

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Step 4 — Generate and copy the token

Click Generate Token.

What you see: The new token is displayed once, as a long string beginning dop_v1_.

Copy it now.

Shown only once

DigitalOcean shows the token only at this moment. If you leave the page without copying it, you cannot retrieve it — you’d have to generate a new one. Do not paste it into chat, email, or any document; the only place it should go is the PhoenixVPS field in the next step.

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Next step

Take the token to DigitalOcean — Key handoff to connect PhoenixVPS.