I tried to create a reverse SSH tunnel from a sandboxed virtual machine to a self-managed Oracle Cloud VPS. The VPS was reachable from my own computer, and its SSH service could listen on both its normal port and a second port. The reverse tunnel from the sandbox never came up. The failure was not fixed by changing the VPS firewall: the sandbox’s forced egress proxy would not carry a usable connection to my server. ...
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) can run Linux virtual machines under its Free Tier, but “free VPS” does not mean every shape, disk, IP address, or service is free forever. You need to choose resources marked Always Free eligible, stay within tenancy limits, and check the estimated cost before creating anything. Account verification and compute capacity can also vary by country and region. Quick answer Register at Oracle’s Free Tier signup page, choose your home region carefully, and verify the account. In the OCI Console, create a VCN and a public subnet with an Internet Gateway, a route rule for 0.0.0.0/0 to that gateway, and an ingress rule for SSH from your own public IP address only. Launch a Linux Compute instance in that subnet using a shape marked Always Free eligible, provide your SSH public key, and assign a public IPv4 address. Connect with OpenSSH, update the operating system, and monitor billing and resource eligibility in the Console. ...