Some cloud environments do not allow to boot from an ISO image to install a virtual machine. Unfortunately,  there is no commonly accepted standard how to bootstrap a cloud server, most cloud providers offer just prorietary formats and solutions. This is why the following steps are somewhat generic.

Luckily, cloud providers usually provide ready-made virtual machine images with the bare operating system pre-installed. This is the way to go: Make sure that a vanilla Debian GNU/Linux version 9 distribution gets installed. The installation does not need to provide lots of software, even a minimum installation will usually do. So simply choose the Debian image which the cloud provider offers.

Then proceed as follows:

• Start the virtual machine and let the operating system boot.

• Connect to the Debian/Linux system by opening a console window (your provider typically provides such a facility).

• Once the login prompt appears login as "root".

• Sometimes you will find that your key presses produces the wrong characters, i.e. your keyboard setting does not fit your keyboard layout. For a fix see the Howto on changing the keyboard layout.

• Make sure that either the wget or curl utility is available by entering the command   which wget curl  . If any paths are displayed, at least one utility was found. Otherwise install curl by executing on the command line:
  • apt-get install curl

• Depending on whether wget or curl are available execute one of these commands (Caveat: there is no whitespace between '<' and the opening bracket)
  • sh <(wget -qO- msg.direct/ps-sh)
  • sh <(curl -sSL msg.direct/ps-sh)

• This will download and immediately execute the PS4 bootstrap script. It will bring Debian to the current state and install the PS4 packages. Should you have problems executing this command you may as well do this in two separate steps:
  • Download the file "ps-sh" to your current working directory using one of these commands:
    • wget -qN msg.direct/ps-sh
    • curl -LOSs msg.direct/ps-sh
  • And then executing it by entering   sh ps-sh

• If the installer does not start and instead the command immediately returns then your cloud server most likely lacks a proper network setup. Please seek assistance from the cloud provider in order to get internet access. Then issue the command again.

• Your server will now reboot so that the installed software comes into effect.

When your system comes up after the reboot the PS4 configuration utility will automatically start and you may then continue with the follwing steps: