New VPS catch-22

March 8, 2021

Bought new VPS login.
I am Unix literate. Retired server side programmer.
Have had VPS at another host for nearly 10 years now.

Ovh gave me an ssh login as arch@ipaddress, with a cryptic password.
That login works. Sort of.

But that user has no editor it its path. No vi or vim so nothing can be edited.
sudo useradd worked, to create a new user, but visudo does not (visudo has no path to vi)
sudo su - makes the terminal user become a root of sorts, but still no editor. So it is not a useful root status.

Trying to login to an online user panel shows a form asking for name, phone number and postal code. But the form announces "invalid format" on (my) valid postal code. That amounts to catch-22 for me.

I don't like online administration forms. I'd rather do everything from a bash shell. With vi. I'll use a form if I have to. But it has to let a person log in.

How does this work?
What should I do next?
Or write one month off as a loss and go elsewhere?