Amazon web services (AWS) has been on our geek radar for a long time. It’s only recently that I found the time and a reason to bother giving it a spin. AWS offers 750 hours of free monthly usage on their lowest tier system. You can run a free MetaTrader VPS without needing to spend $30-40 per month.
The biggest disadvantage to using AWS is the number of steps involved. I have a staff of 4 full time programmers, yet it still took us quite awhile to figure out how to configure everything properly. Luckily for you, the steps below will save you all the hassle.
Sign up for a free MetaTrader VPS
- Sign up for an account with Amazon AWS. Assuming that you’ve already done business with Amazon before, use the same account information to keep yourself from getting confused.
- Even though you don’t plan to use any paid services, Amazon requires a credit card before you’re allowed to create instances (which is basically a VPS). The easiest way to do this is to visit the My Account section.
- Click My Account / Console, which is the same place that you clicked to complete step 2.Click on EC2, Virtual Servers in the cloud.
- Click the big blue button that says AWS Launch Instance
- A new screen loads titled “Create a New Instance.” On the left side, change the radio button so that it appears next to the Quick Launch Wizard. New options will load on the right side of the screen.Scroll down until you see a Windows server option that reads “Free Tier Eligible”. Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Base 64 bit is fine.
The top of the screen allows for naming the instance. Name the instance “Free MetaTrader VPS” to make it obvious what you intend to use it for.
Choose a key pair, which handles the cryptography. Select “Create New” to keep it nice and simple. Amazon will force you to download a .pem file. It’s very important that you remember where you saved this file.
Push continue.
- Wait up to a minute on the new screen. When AWS is ready, you will have the opportunity to push the Launch button.Check that the type reads “t1.micro”. This means that you’re getting a free VPS to run MetaTrader.
Accessing the Instance
The fact that you pushed launch is anti-climactic. It’s going to be another 5 minutes before you can use the free VPS. Sit back and read your favorite blog to kill some time.
After waiting 5 minutes, then we can get started.
- If you’re in the EC2 dashboard, click Instances on the left menu.When the new page loads, you’ll see a grid listing the available instances. If you followed the steps properly, you’ll see one labeled Free MetaTrader VPS. Right click on it, then select Connect.
- A screen loads called “Console Connect”. The important information appears near the top. The username is always “Administrator”. The password should appear if you did not select a key pair.If you did select a key pair, then click on the link Retrieve Password. You’ll need to upload the .pem file that Amazon provided at the time that you created the keys. Amazon decrypts the file and supplies a password for the VPS.
Once you know the user name and password, click the link to Download Shortcut File. Save this in an obvious location such as your Desktop or My Documents. The file type is .rdp.
If your browser allows you to choose the name, change it to something understandable like “Free MetaTrader VPS.rdp”.
- Double click the icon that you saved to Desktop.
- Type in the password where prompted
- Start installing MetaTrader like you would on any other computer. It looks like you’re on a brand new computer – because that’s exactly what you’ve done.
Congratulations – you just finished setting up your free VPS courtesy of Amazon Web Services.
Lightweight Technical Specs
You’re getting what you pay for. The free VPS is barely above the minimum specs for running MetaTrader.
The setup comes with 613 MB RAM and the equivalent of a single processor. If you’re not computer savvy, that’s like running MetaTrader on a computer that you bought in 2000.
Running demanding expert advisors or any calculation intensive MQL file will stall the system. The setup is sufficient for bare bones trading and not much else.
Help
Did you get stuck anywhere in the process? Leave comments below so that we can answer your question and make the instructions more clear.
Daniel says
Hi Shaun,
I’ve just followed your very clear instructions and managed to create myself a MT4 VPS. Thanks for the heads up.
Daniel
Shaun Overton says
Very cool! I’m glad that you were able to set it up easily.
Daniel says
Btw, how do you upload files to it? I decided to share a drive in my computer and place files there as it seems the easiest option.
Shaun Overton says
The easiest way is to cut and paste. Minimize the VPS window. Find your file, right click and select copy.
Open the VPS window again. Right click on the desktop and select Paste. Windows handles the file transfer process for you.
It’s not very efficient for large files. Google Drive, TransferBigFiles.com and other services are better in those situations.
nate says
I have set everything up desktop doesnt login,help.
John Nicol says
You neglected to point out that Amazon only provide their Free Service to new customers!
If you signed up more than 365 days ago, then you get charged!
Free Service ends after 365 days.
[Quote=Shaun Overton]Sign up for an account with Amazon AWS. Assuming that you’ve already done business with Amazon before, use the same account information to keep yourself from getting confused.[/quote]
Don’t use an existing account or you’ll get burned!
Shaun Overton says
Hi John,
I wasn’t aware of that. Thank you for bringing that to everyone’s attention.
Amit Gupta says
Hello People,
I guess this is not the best platform to ask this question. But you guys seem to be expert traders.
I am new to algorithmic trading and exploring various options. Just wanted to a quick feedback, if windows machines suits best for this need. And Do you think Meta Trader is the way to go ?
Thanks,
Amit
Shaun Overton says
Hi Amit,
Thanks for your comment. Yes, a Windows based VPS and MetaTrader is a great way to start. MT4 has its pitfalls, but I do believe it’s an excellent starter platform for new traders. I really like the flexibility it offers to easily switch brokers without needing to learn a new software platform.
David Michael says
Hi, thank you for such usefull guide. Sorry for this silly question, how to change the administrator password ? thank you in advance 🙂
Shaun Overton says
Hi David,
That’s a great question (seriously). You would expect to be able to change the Windows VPS password in AWS. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. You’re stuck with the complicated passwords that Amazon generates. You can decrypt the password using the .pem key file.
David Michael says
Hi Shaun, many thanks for the prompt reply, you are the best 🙂
Simon Robinson says
Dear Shaun,
I have an EA that I want to test live and the free VPS seems ideal. Will it be able to cope with an EA that basically uses an AMA and an MACD with a couple of if.then rules, or will this make the whole system grind.
Thanks,
Simon
Shaun Overton says
Hey Simon,
Your EA sounds like a great fir for AWS. I doubt that you’d see much of a performance penalty.
Ahmet says
Hi. Thanks for the guide. I opened an amazon account and followed the steps above. At first amazon charged me $1 ..what are the limits not to be charged by amazon again? I want to run an EA on MT4. Thanks for the guide again.
Dickson 'Remolen says
Hi Shaun Overton,many thanks for all the infos,I followed them,encountered some difficulties along the way,but finally got it right within two days.The VPS is up and running now.
Shaun Overton says
I’m glad that you got it working! Thanks for letting me know that you found the article helpful.
Alex says
I got a error message saying Each network interface requires either a subnet or a network interface ID.
What gives?
Shaun Overton says
Hi Alex,
Where are you receiving the error? In the instance of RDP? In Amazon AWS? It’d help if you could provide a screenshot.
Alex2 says
Screenshot: http://picpaste.com/pics/aws-error.1378144629.png
What do I do to fix this?
Shaun Overton says
I honestly don’t know. You might try looking for that error message in the AWS forums.
Davids says
Hi Shaun, How long does it take to create a new instance, because after clicking the launch button, i was take to window which says, “You can perform the following tasks while your instance is launching”. Have been on this window for almost 15mins but nothing is happening. When i click the Cancel button below on the window and check my the EC2 dashboard, i do not find any instance running.
Shaun Overton says
It usually takes 5-15 minutes. It’s not something that comes online immediately.
Asif says
I try to achieve this service AWS but failed due to credit card(i only have debit card).
Now bit confused where to get alternative source.
Some broker offer free vps services,but some extra conditions apply eg minimum investment should 1000$,minimum trade volume should 10 lot in month etc.
And for a beginner hard to maintain these conditions.
If we search vps service from google lot of web sites offer with cheap price 15$,but when we mention for forex use then same service become more then double near 30$.
An other confusion is cloud(vps) is cheap then vps at same web site.
Now question is,can we use cloud vps for MT4?
Shaun Overton says
Thanks for your reply. What do you mean by cloud VPS? Almost all VPS services are virtualizations of a cloud server.
Asif says
Hi Mr,Shaun thanks for your reply.
“Cloud VPS hosting is the latest hosting service. Similarly to VPS, Cloud VPS is dedicated to one client only, but Cloud VPS is not associated with a single physical server, instead it consists of some smaller server parts – nodes – which are kept in different physical servers. Each nod works like a little server with its own RAM, CPU and disk space. All the nodes are connected using advanced technological solutions, turning the Cloud VPS to one powerful entity. Cloud VPS has two main advantages:
The additional features can be added without turning off the server, guaranteeing the 99.9% uptime. Therefore Cloud VPS can be used for powerful and large scale projects.
Cloud technology eliminates the danger of losing data or having the website not working properly in case of server issues, as all the resources are immediately allocated to other nodes. This is especially important for time and money sensitive projects which ought to be running 24/7.
Cloud VPS hosting is provided on an international level as some services may require physical servers which are located not only in different datacenters, but in different countries.”
The above paragraph i copy and paste here from web site,http://www.host1plus.com/cloud-hosting/
They are offering vps hosting and cloud hosting separately,and in cloud hosting i see OS Templates Groups,in which windows+Meta trader option is present.
Now before entering in,i am thinking first, should take some advice from Mr Shaun.
Shaun Overton says
It sounds pretty compelling to me. VPS is fine for most people, but cloud VPS sounds like it’s a stronger solution. Whether or not it’s worth a premium price depends on the amount of money that you’re trading.
Anton Allen says
Hi thank you for the tip to get this VPS, however I get this message when I try to sign on:
Thank you for signing up for Amazon EC2. Your subscription is being processed.
We will send you an email when you can begin using this service. For most customers this takes only a few minutes, but if additional account verification is required, then processing can take several hours.
Until your subscription is ready, you can learn more about the AWS Management Console.
I have already received an email confirmation letter: Greetings from Amazon Web Services,
Thank you for signing up for AWS Support (Basic). You now have immediate access to AWS Support (Basic).
So does anyone know what gives??
Shaun Overton says
Hi Anton,
Were you able to resolve this? Amazon has a support ticketing system where you can email your problems directly.
nate says
that was a waste of time did not work.desktop said vps was not enable.
Shaun Overton says
Did you wait the 15 minutes that AWS says it takes to spin up a new instance? It doesn’t happen right away.
nate simon says
i did everything right but it wont let me connect to desktop.
Shaun Overton says
I assume that you mean you can’t connect using Remote Desktop? What happens when you try to connect?
marcus raymond says
hey Shaun i already have an existing metatrader account. what is the process?
Shaun Overton says
Hey Marcus,
It doesn’t have anything to do with MetaTrader. You have to set everything up through Amazon.
marcus raymond says
yea but how do i load my metatrader on the VPS? i am not tech sauvy
Shaun Overton says
Have you opened up remote desktop yet? Once you’ve done that, you download and install MT4 like you do on any other computer.
marcus raymond says
i am in the process of opening up the remote desktop. i already have MT4 up and running, and trading right now. so what you are saying once i set up VPS, i can turn off my PC physically and my MT4 will still be running?
Shaun Overton says
Sit tight until you get Remote Desktop working… it’ll make a lot more sense you see what it is.
Ms. Jones says
I signed up for AWS and did just like your video instructed. 🙂 Now the problem is that while setting up MT4 email. I’m getting an error message in my journal. ” Message 550 Sender address is not allowed”
Shaun Overton says
Your email provider requires a secure connection, which MT4 cannot do. You can read more about the error at http://forum.mql4.com/49686#650525. The easiest solution is to use a different email address for sending the messages.
Marcus k says
Thanks for tutorial, I now have a MT4 setup on an instance of EC2.
Are there any settings I need to apply for the security group to make my VPS more secure?
Shaun Overton says
No, it’s already secure using the default settings.
Niall Cochrane says
Hi Shawn, thanks for the video, it was very helpful but I have a couple of questions;
I am wondering if people use this service just to run MT4 so that either Signals or EA’s can run for the duration of the forex open market hours uninterrupted? Or is it to use MT4 for trading.
Is the response time of MT4 which is located on the AWS quick enough to use for normal trading ?
I hope this makes sense, thanks
Niall
Shaun Overton says
Hi Niall,
I expect most people use the VPS for EAs. Although you could use the VPS for manual trades, I don’t see any advantage to trading manually through a VPS.
Niall Cochrane says
Thanks for your reply Shawn.
If for example I have more than one EA and want to run two sessions of MT4 on a VPS server (one for each EA), is this possible or even advisable ?
Shaun Overton says
There’s no issue running multiple instances of MT4 on a VPS.
Niall Cochrane says
Hi Shaun, thanks again for your help and I must apologise for spelling your name wrong twice.
Best regards
Niall
Niall says
I have set it all up but it won’t connect – no idea why.
Niall says
I managed to get it sorted, the RDP file that is used to connect was blocked by windows. 3 hours and now a headache !!
Niall says
Do you know if I can log into the instance from more than one computer ? for example, a comp at work and one at home ?
Shaun Overton says
Yes, you can.
Trevor says
Thanks for the great instructions on setting up the Meta Trader VPS.
I am getting a lot of network traffic which looks like it will end up costing around $30 per month. Does this sound correct to you?
Shaun Overton says
No, it doesn’t. MT4 is fairly light on the bandwidth.
Sanjay says
Shaun, Thanks for let us know this free VPS service. After setting up the VPS is it possible to close the service at anytime. Asking this question since we are providing our credit card details.
Shaun Overton says
Yes, you can cancel at any time.
yassine says
Hi
i lose may key file where i can get it again plzz help me
i want to get the password again
Shaun Overton says
Hi Yassine,
Just make a new key file.
Harris says
Hi Shaun: Hope you are well. Thank you for posting this. yesterday, I did exactly as instructed in the youtube and successfully run an MT4 instance. I run EAs and also tester optimization, left it running for the night looking forward to see some progress test results next day.
Then this morning, I was disappointed to see the MT4 shut down, vanished completely. Now, re-optimizing back from scratch. and thankfully, its not my real account.
Any idea what happen? or maybe amazon shut it down because taking it up much resource? thanks for your kind advice.
Harris
Singapore
Shaun Overton says
Hi Harris,
I doubt Amazon shut it down. You have 0.5 GB of RAM and the assigned processing power. If your optimization is extremely complex, then it may have crashed the platform. You’re much better off doing those tests on your own machine – no need to use a VPS for those.
harris says
yes i had similar thoughts. my EA is not at all complex. its very basic hedge only involves 2 pair orders of the same symbol at a time.
i was recalling how fast MT4 was running on XP. im running on win 7 and slow. any thoughts? thanks, appreciate your reply.
Mark Falzon says
Hi Shaun.
I have started a VPN session but can’t download MT4 as I get the following error message – “Your current security settings do not allow this file to be downloaded”. Do you know what I need to do to fix this?
Mark
Shaun Overton says
Yes, it’s a huge pain in the rear. The easiest thing is to install Firefox and then clicking through ~10 Allow Exception messages. Once Firefox is installed, use it to download MT4.
Not a great answer, I know.
Tina says
Thanks so much for sharing this discovery. Especially for demo accounts, this is an excellent alternative to paying for VPS! I’m definitely going to give this a try. A couple questions:
1. I assume we should create a new Instance for each broker / EA, correct?
2. Do these virtual servers ever need any maintenance on our part, like local computers need reboots after installing program updates? What happens if an application I install on the VPS downloads an update and needs to reboot? (Can you tell I’ve never used a VPS?)
Thanks again for the detailed video and article.
Shaun Overton says
1. You’ll have to start paying much earlier if you created multiple instances. That said, you’ll also get much better performance out of the VPS.
2. No, not really. The maintenance takes care of itself. You login to the AWS interface and tell whatever instance needs rebooting to stop and then start.
Everton says
Eu criei conta na Amazon, instalei o MT5 e quando fui logar no .rdp ele apresentou tres erros..dizendo que servidor poderia estar indisponivel..estar com problemas. Sendo que no dia anterior acessei normalmente. Imagina o que possa estar acontecendo? Acesso a conta na Amazon normalmente e na nuvem diz que a instancia esta rodando normalmente..não entendo muito.
Shaun Overton says
That’s certainly unusual. You’d need to inquire with Amazon tech support.
Edemar says
Hi Shaun. Congratulations on the information. I wonder what are the ideal configurations for the instance to work with Metatrader. a little slow on the free version have noticed.
Shaun Overton says
Yes, the free version runs slowly. Even the small instances still run slowly. I run 3 MT4 instances at a time on a small Windows package and it maxes out.
The problem is that MetaTrader isn’t multithreaded. Buying a faster server won’t solve the problem. You have to rent lots of the little servers in order to make it work properly.
Daniel says
Requires the administrator password and when I wrote the administrator password from my PC – doesn’t works (wrong password when it’s not in reality)
Shaun Overton says
Hi Daniel,
AWS assigns you an administrator password. It will certainly differ from the one used on your local PC.
–Shaun
denis says
Bom dia Shaun , eu preciso ligar 5 conta MT5 para adinistrar robos para meus clientes, em uma VPS, enta configuração aguenta quantas contas?
Shaun Overton says
You probably need to set up one t2.medium instance. MT5 is multithreaded; anything with 4 GB or more of RAM should handle it, even if you’re trading 20 charts per instance.
petter says
hi shaun
Thanks for info,
Actually i used aws for almost a year already, and expiry is coming up 🙁
Indeed it is slow until mouse click response like minutes after click 😛
But since i do not look at the mt4 all the time, just let it run…so i can live with the slowness
Recently the platform is going crazy…like keying number 1 end up pop up some windows; as though is some short cut command. can u imagine u tried to save the file and type the file name…all of sudden a window pop up becoz of the specific key u trying to type has become a short cut key….weird…maybe their way to tell us our time is up 😀
By the way important question is: can we create multiple aws account?
Or they do not allow us registering same account (by checking our IP? same credit card number? same phone number?)
Shaun Overton says
Hey Petter,
I don’t think you get a notification. It’s only $10 a month, so very worth it. And for $10, it’s worth putting up with a lot of slowness.
You don’t need multiple AWS accounts. Just spin up a new VPS instance anytime you want a new version of Windows.
–Shaun
petter says
so i can stopped my old expiring soon instance…
at same time i can create another new instance for free?
or do they start charging me since i already tested their free service for 1 year
was wondering can i create new aws account to create another 1 year free trial 😀
Mariusz Danek says
Hello
I installed everything as in the film. thank you very much. However, I have a problem with the password – what should I enter there? please help
Shaun Overton says
You need to use the security key stored in the .pem file you created to retrieve the password.
Mikael Mortensen says
Hi Shaun
I have been running a t2Micro server on AWS since May 2016. This works fine both on PC and MAC. I am running ElasticIP, but I am not 100% sure of the benefit of this, can you please help me out on this?
My primary issue is though that I have to restart the server every 3-4 hours, I have made a few checks, the server is running at about 35% CPU and the historic file in MT4 is not huge. I have tried to restart MT4 and also to reboot the AWS server, but I does not solve the problem. What can I do?
Shaun Overton says
An elastic IP is pretty hard core for a single trading instance. That’s designed for failovers… I can’t imagine how you would failover MT4 without risking duplicate trades.
Try Cntl + Alt + Delete and click on the Performance tab. Are your CPU cycles, RAM use or disk IO maxing out? If so, then find the offending application on the first tab. You can sort open processes by the resource column (CPU, Memory, Disk IO).
Paulo says
Olá amigo, ótimo passo-a-passo.
A configuração eu fiz em casa e agora cheguei no trabalho para acessar e não está dando.
Aparece uma janela do windows (após tentar rodar o .rdp):
“A area de trabalho remota não pode se conectar ao computador por uma das razões:
1) O acesso remoto ao servidos não está ativado
2) O computador remotor está desligado
3) O computador remoto não está disponível na rede”
Só que tudo está funcionando pois o MT está abrindo e fechando ordens só que eu não consigo entrar no VPS para olhar ele.
Sabes o que pode ser?
Shaun Overton says
You need to allow access for your IP address at work.
FRANCILLANIO DA COSTA OLIVEIRA says
12 meses gratuitos de vps ne ? depois disso sera cobrado qt ? eu posso cancelar caso queira ?
Shaun Overton says
Yes, you get 12 free months. Yes, you can cancel any time for free during the 12 months.
Yusri says
Hello sir,
Thanks for those explanation and for now I already get the free VPS from Aws amazon. Great to have that.
I already installed the mt4 onto the VPS and run the EA during wifi connection is available, the EA is work properly.
But then, after I close my laptop, it’s like the vps is not working. Those EA not taking any position at all. So here the question, is the VPS need a wifi connection too?
Regards, Thanks
Yusri Wolf Hunter
Malaysian Trader
Shaun Overton says
Your computer being on or off has no impact on the VPS. Something else is the problem.