A devbox is just a cloud machine you develop on instead of your laptop. It's always on, always reachable, and it doesn't drain your battery or spin up your fans. Hetzner makes this cheap: a capable box runs a few euros a month. Here's the whole thing in about ten minutes.

1. Create the server

Sign up at Hetzner Cloud, then New Project → Add Server. Sensible defaults:

  • Location: whichever is closest to you (lower latency for SSH).
  • Image: Ubuntu 24.04 LTS.
  • Type: a shared vCPU CAX (Arm) or CX (x86). Start small, you can resize later.
  • SSH key: paste your public key here. Never rely on password login.

If you don't have a key yet, make one first:

ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "devbox"
cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub

2. First SSH in

Grab the server's IP from the dashboard and connect:

ssh root@YOUR_SERVER_IP

Add a shortcut to ~/.ssh/config so you can just type ssh devbox:

Host devbox
    HostName YOUR_SERVER_IP
    User dev
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_ed25519

3. Make it yours (and safer)

Working as root is a bad habit. Create a normal user, give it sudo, and copy your key over:

adduser dev
usermod -aG sudo dev
rsync --archive --chown=dev:dev ~/.ssh /home/dev

Then lock down the essentials. Disable root login and turn on the firewall:

sed -i 's/^#\?PermitRootLogin.*/PermitRootLogin no/' /etc/ssh/sshd_config
systemctl restart ssh
ufw allow OpenSSH && ufw enable

4. Install your toolchain

Update, then install whatever you actually build with:

apt update && apt upgrade -y
apt install -y git build-essential tmux

I usually add mise (or nvm/pyenv) for language versions, and tmux so a dropped connection never kills a running task.

5. Actually code on it

Two ways I switch between:

  • VS Code Remote-SSH: install the extension, point it at devbox, and your editor runs locally while everything else runs on the server.
  • Terminal + tmux: ssh devbox, tmux new -s work, and detach with Ctrl-b d. Reattach later from anywhere with tmux a.

Why bother

Your laptop becomes a thin client. Builds run on server-grade CPU, long jobs survive a closed lid, and every device you own points at the same environment. When you outgrow the box, resize it in the dashboard. When you're done, delete it and stop paying.

That's it: a real, always-on dev environment for the price of a coffee.