OCI ARM Hunter

Oracle’s ARM Always Free tier (VM.Standard.A1.Flex — 2 OCPUs / 12 GB RAM) is almost always out of capacity. oci-arm-hunter retries the OCI API continuously until your instance is available, then claims it and notifies you — all without touching the web console.

Important Update (June 2026): Oracle Cloud has reduced the Always Free Ampere A1 Compute limits to 2 OCPUs and 12 GB RAM per tenancy. If you are using a Pay As You Go (PAYG) account to bypass capacity limits, make sure to configure OCPUS=2 and MEMORY_GB=12 in your .env to prevent unexpected charges.

What it does

Interactive setup — runs make setup to fetch all OCI resource IDs automatically via oci-cli
Persistent retry loop — rotates Availability Domains with randomized cooldown jitter
Instant notification — push alert via ntfy.sh (or any webhook) the moment your VM is claimed
Unattended 24/7 — runs as a systemd service or tmux session on an existing Micro VM

Quick Start

git clone https://github.com/sandovaldavid/oci-arm-hunter.git
cd oci-arm-hunter
make setup    # interactive wizard — fetches OCIDs automatically
make run-bg   # launch in background (tmux)
make logs     # follow live progress

Make Targets

Command	Description
`make setup`	Interactive wizard to generate `.env`
`make run`	Launch hunter in foreground
`make run-bg`	Launch in persistent tmux session
`make logs`	Follow live log
`make status`	Check if hunter is running
`make stop`	Stop the tmux session
`make install`	Install as systemd service
`make uninstall`	Remove systemd service

Prerequisites

oci-cli configured with API key credentials
jq — apt install jq / dnf install jq
tmux — for background execution

Notifications

# .env
NOTIFY_URL="https://ntfy.sh/your-unique-topic"

Install the ntfy app on your phone. No account required.

Ready to claim your ARM instance? Check the Getting Started guide to set up the hunter in less than 5 minutes.