When starting with BB, you may be fine setting it up on your PC, and get familiar with it. But when you’re convinced that BB suits your crypto balancing needs, you may be looking for options to run it on a server in the cloud, so you don’t need to keep your PC up and running 24/7.

There are plenty of options to do so. Make sure the server:

  • Has Node.js version 16 or above installed (also see Updating NodeJS)
  • Supports WebSockets
  • Does not idle your application
  • Is located in a region supported by your exchange (e.g. Binance blocks US IP addresses)

Well-known cloud providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud all provide a broad range of services to run web applications. But those are not always the most affordable.

One option that is very affordable and has proven to be reliable for many BB users so far is Vultr.com. They provide a so-called VPS (Virtual Private Server) option for a great price. There are no long-term commitments. You just deposit some initial payment to get started, and when you run out of credits you’ll be notified so you can top up your account. You can even pay with BTC. 🙂 You can stop the service at any time and get a refund for any remaining credits that may be left.

Coming next is a validated step-by-step guide for setting BB up on Vultr.com.

Create a Vultr account

  • Go to Vultr.com. By using this referral link, you’ll support this project 💖 (once again), which would be greatly appreciated
  • Click ‘sign up’ and follow the instructions to create your account

Watch the following video to learn how to deploy BB in the cloud, or follow the instructions further down.

Deploy a new server

  • Once you’re account is set up, it’s time to create your VPS. Go to Products and click the + icon to deploy a new server:
    1. Choose the ‘Cloud Compute’ option
    2. Select ‘Intel Regular Performance’
    3. As location, select the one nearest to you
    4. As server image, select ‘Ubuntu’, version 23.x or later
    5. For server size, pick the cheapest option
    6. Optionally enable auto backups, based on your preference
    7. IMPORTANT: disable the IPv6 option
    8. Enter a hostname and label at the bottom. This can be any name you want to use for your sever
    9. Hit ‘deploy now’ and wait until the server is set up

Log in to your server

  • Once the server status has changed to ‘Running’, click on the server to go to the server details screen
  • Here you’ll find the username (root) and password. Copy the password to your clipboard by clicking the copy icon
  • Then open the console by clicking on the monitor icon at the top right (left-most icon in a row of 5)
  • In the new window that appears, wait until the installation is complete. This may take up to 10 minutes, so be patient. It’s not always clear when the installation is done. But if nothing changed on the screen for a few minutes, that’s your que
  • Hit [enter]
  • You should now be asked for a login. Enter ‘root’
  • Enter the password. You can paste the password that you previously copied by using the ‘Send Clipboard’ button in the top-right corner of the window. You won’t see the password being entered, but wait a few seconds and then hit [enter]
  • You should now be logged in
  • The text that is printed to the screen may indicate you need to restart the server. If so, please do so from the Vultr dashboard by clicking the restart icon (middle icon in a row of 5), open a new console window, wait until the restart is finished (look out for ‘SUCCESS’), and log in again

Install Balance Bot

The last step is to get BB installed on your server.

  • Do so by copying the following command to your clipboard:

wget -P /tmp -L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hodlerhacks/balance-bot-ubuntu-script/master/bb_install.sh;bash /tmp/bb_install.sh

  • Then paste it in your console with the ‘Send Clipboard’ button. It will take a few seconds to complete. Make sure the complete command is indeed copied. Then hit [enter].
  • Wait until the installation process completes, this may take a minute or two
  • You should now see a menu appear on the screen
  • Choose option 1 to install BB
  • If you get a purple screen with the question ‘Which services should be restarted’, just hit enter

Enable IP whitelisting

IMPORTANT: to avoid that anyone can access your bot(s), it is strongly advised to enable so-called IP whitelisting. With IP whitelisting enabled, BB can only be accessed from the configured IP address. This can be done from the Bot Manager’s settings.

An easy way to get your IP address is by going here: https://www.whatsmyip.org/. Repeat the process to add multiple IP addresses to the whitelist.

Accessing Balance Bot

BB is now running on your server. On the Vultr.com server dashboard, you can find the IP address for your server. Use that to access BB on:

http://[ip address]:3000

Reinstalling the BB Installer

If you ever need to reinstall the BB Installer, it is advised to first remove the existing installation. Do so by copying the following to the console:

rm -r /tmp/bb_install.sh; rm -r /var/opt/balance-bot-ubuntu-script

Additional options

  • You can update BB from the menu, using option 2
  • You can do a clean re-install, use option 3. This will keep all configuration data, logs, etc. so no data will be lost
  • To use the command prompt, exit the menu with option 0
  • At the prompt type: pm2 log to see the output / error messages from the Balance-Bot server
  • At the prompt type: pm2 monit to see the output / error messages from the Balance-Bot server
  • At the prompt type: pm2 list to see the status of the Balance-Bot server
  • And some script options available directly from the prompt:
    • bbmenu
    • bbupdate
    • bbstart
    • bbrestart
    • bbstop
    • scriptupdate

Advanced options

If needed, you can access files on the Vultr server. More information can be found here.