Super Cheap Virtual Private Servers - the Wild West of Hosting(blog.maclawran.ca)
blog.maclawran.ca
Super Cheap Virtual Private Servers - the Wild West of Hosting
http://blog.maclawran.ca/96882258
18 comments
Part of why this can be so cheap is density.
The Parallels Virtuozzo / OpenVZ container-based approach to virtualization is just so infinitely more efficient than hypervisor-based virtualization. It's really, really staggering. We use it where I work for internal virtualization and have done tests with thousands of containers on a box that could hold at most 20-30 KVM-based hypervisor instances.
If you look into the deep tech details, it becomes immediately obvious why this is the case. It's too bad this isn't in the mainline Linux kernel. There is an effort called LXC, but it is behind OpenVZ/Virtuozzo, especially in the security department.
The only disadvantage is that you can't run your own kernel, but for 99.9% of Linux applications this does not matter. You can do quite a bit inside a container: OpenVPN, IPSec, Fuse, IPTables, bridging, etc.
For personal hosting, I've had very good luck with this one: http://alienvps.com/
I have their "abduction" plan -- a very very cheap one not advertised on the homepage. It's very small, but I've managed to cram a stripped-down MySQL and Lighttpd LAMP stack in there for my personal sites. You can't beat the price, and so far I've had no downtime or issues.
The Parallels Virtuozzo / OpenVZ container-based approach to virtualization is just so infinitely more efficient than hypervisor-based virtualization. It's really, really staggering. We use it where I work for internal virtualization and have done tests with thousands of containers on a box that could hold at most 20-30 KVM-based hypervisor instances.
If you look into the deep tech details, it becomes immediately obvious why this is the case. It's too bad this isn't in the mainline Linux kernel. There is an effort called LXC, but it is behind OpenVZ/Virtuozzo, especially in the security department.
The only disadvantage is that you can't run your own kernel, but for 99.9% of Linux applications this does not matter. You can do quite a bit inside a container: OpenVPN, IPSec, Fuse, IPTables, bridging, etc.
For personal hosting, I've had very good luck with this one: http://alienvps.com/
I have their "abduction" plan -- a very very cheap one not advertised on the homepage. It's very small, but I've managed to cram a stripped-down MySQL and Lighttpd LAMP stack in there for my personal sites. You can't beat the price, and so far I've had no downtime or issues.
Part of why this can be so cheap is density.
This is also the reason why performance is usually beyond terrible. Most of the cheap VPS hosts are extremely overprovisioned and not very well maintained. There may be the odd gem (I haven't tried alien), but $130 buys you a rackspace VM for a year nowadays, so I don't see the point of even bothering anymore.
This is also the reason why performance is usually beyond terrible. Most of the cheap VPS hosts are extremely overprovisioned and not very well maintained. There may be the odd gem (I haven't tried alien), but $130 buys you a rackspace VM for a year nowadays, so I don't see the point of even bothering anymore.
Those are business problems, not tech shortcomings. Poor performance is due to horrendous overselling, while poor maintenance is due to being cheap.
You don't have to oversell like that. It doesn't change the fundamental, unavoidable fact that containers are a far more efficient way to virtualize than hypervisors for fundamental architectural reasons. An OpenVZ-based hoster that didn't oversell ridiculously would be cheaper and faster than a hypervisor-based host.
With a hypervisor you are running an entire kernel within a simulated machine within another kernel. That will never be more efficient.
You don't have to oversell like that. It doesn't change the fundamental, unavoidable fact that containers are a far more efficient way to virtualize than hypervisors for fundamental architectural reasons. An OpenVZ-based hoster that didn't oversell ridiculously would be cheaper and faster than a hypervisor-based host.
With a hypervisor you are running an entire kernel within a simulated machine within another kernel. That will never be more efficient.
From the article:
> Linode http://linode.com - expensive, no IPV6, really fast network @ 11.9 Mbps
Actually Linode have IPv6 support in 5 of their 6 locations :-)
> Linode http://linode.com - expensive, no IPV6, really fast network @ 11.9 Mbps
Actually Linode have IPv6 support in 5 of their 6 locations :-)
I just did the speed test on linode (Atlanta) and got 52.1 MBps. I can't say enough good things about their service.
http://imgur.com/BLmCH
http://imgur.com/BLmCH
From one of my Linode 512's in Fremont I get 89.0MB/s running the "test" in this blog post.
thanks, corrected.
It would be nice if there were a web site with a recommended tool that you could install on your VPS and then when you ran it it would upload your results directly to a comparison page. That way you could compare the cost to the performance of each service.
It could run that network test he mentions in the article, and hdparm, something to check CPU load, gather info on the CPUs and memory and whether it was using Xen or OpenVZ or whatever, maybe try a few benchmarks.
It could run that network test he mentions in the article, and hdparm, something to check CPU load, gather info on the CPUs and memory and whether it was using Xen or OpenVZ or whatever, maybe try a few benchmarks.
So I thought I give empire-hosting a try to play with a cheap box.
>>>
Thank you for signing up with us. Your new account has been setup and you can now login to our client area using the details below.
Email Address: my.mail@address
Password: YepYouGuessWhatWasRightHereInCleartext
To login, visit http://secure.empire-hosting.net
<<<
Ah well.. Let's look at the other recommendations of that list, I guess.
>>>
Thank you for signing up with us. Your new account has been setup and you can now login to our client area using the details below.
Email Address: my.mail@address
Password: YepYouGuessWhatWasRightHereInCleartext
To login, visit http://secure.empire-hosting.net
<<<
Ah well.. Let's look at the other recommendations of that list, I guess.
Just because the welcome email contains the password in clear doesn't mean that they permanently store the password in their database unhashed.
First of all: I didn't claim that (although, yes, maybe that kind of got implied). [1]
But I even think this practice is useless. They just sent my password in cleartext. It sits now in my inbox and I have to delete it or I store my unprotected password. And - for what exactly? Does that serve any purpose? I just entered it a second ago.
So I question the usefulness of that approach and consider this very first contact unprofessional. YMMV and all.
1: Just tried the 'Forgot my password' dance and it they don't retrieve it at least: Received mail with link to site which sends a mail with auto-generated password to log in. A bit weird, but well..
But I even think this practice is useless. They just sent my password in cleartext. It sits now in my inbox and I have to delete it or I store my unprotected password. And - for what exactly? Does that serve any purpose? I just entered it a second ago.
So I question the usefulness of that approach and consider this very first contact unprofessional. YMMV and all.
1: Just tried the 'Forgot my password' dance and it they don't retrieve it at least: Received mail with link to site which sends a mail with auto-generated password to log in. A bit weird, but well..
Deleting an email really isn't that onerous a task, but you are of course free to use whatever criteria you wish to judge a host.
And as you point out with the "forgotten password dance", access to your email account gives an attacker access to your hosting account anyway (although not stealthily).
And as you point out with the "forgotten password dance", access to your email account gives an attacker access to your hosting account anyway (although not stealthily).
Again, I didn't claim it is.
This was the very first contact. Sending me passwords (same for 'temporary ones' after a reset. I consider that a cumbersome process whereas I consider the initial mail just plain "wrong") delivers more than just the text over this channel.
I read between the lines "Here's your password again from 2 minutes ago. File it away" which again is nothing I consider a good idea. The impression is that they write the digital form of a post-it note of the password for my monitor.
Is it a big issue in itself? Nope, probably not. But it certainly ruined the first impression for me and I'll walk away now. I shared that part because others might (or might not) agree and to potentially save like-minded people a registration.
This was the very first contact. Sending me passwords (same for 'temporary ones' after a reset. I consider that a cumbersome process whereas I consider the initial mail just plain "wrong") delivers more than just the text over this channel.
I read between the lines "Here's your password again from 2 minutes ago. File it away" which again is nothing I consider a good idea. The impression is that they write the digital form of a post-it note of the password for my monitor.
Is it a big issue in itself? Nope, probably not. But it certainly ruined the first impression for me and I'll walk away now. I shared that part because others might (or might not) agree and to potentially save like-minded people a registration.
No, but it does mean that anyone who's able to view your traffic or your mail box content could've seen the password (anyone controlling any router or a mail relay between you and them, or your mail service provider, or even someone with tcpdump on your LAN segment).
If your threat model includes hostile mail relays, you probably shouldn't be using bargain basement VPS providers.
Password-reset emails are also easy for an attacker to generate, and no harder for them to intercept than the welcome email.
Password-reset emails are also easy for an attacker to generate, and no harder for them to intercept than the welcome email.
Right, that's what GP said in the comment you replied to: that he probably should not use that VPS provider.
And yes, password-reset emails may also be a concern (not as severe, though, if reset emails are single-use and have short TTL).
And yes, password-reset emails may also be a concern (not as severe, though, if reset emails are single-use and have short TTL).
But you at least know your account has been compromised.
can we please stop having this conversation every time a plain text password is mentioned, its a bad idea to have a recoverable password, in any form, the end.
http://codahale.com/how-to-safely-store-a-password/
http://codahale.com/how-to-safely-store-a-password/
It's not helping that you give the wrong explanation. The issue here isn't that the password is recoverable, because you don't know whether that is true. It may as well be properly bcrypted. The problem is that they sent you the plaintext password you just entered via email.
Can we please have people stop assuming that the password is recoverable just because it's put in an email when it's set.
Interesting, how would your perception change if the email included a notice saying something to the effect of, "here is you password... rest assured, we have not stored it on our system. Please memorize it and delete this email for maximum security"? Of course, you really need to protect your email as much as possible. If someone gains access to your email, they can pretty much ruin your day anyways. All they would have to do is click the "forgot password" link, wait for the email to come in to your inbox, and go from there.
Why would that help? His password was sent across an open network in plain text...
Actually - I dont think they save it at all. They kickstart a new VM with the root password and forget about it permanently.
Are there any good alternatives to Linode in Europe? I've been using them for years any not had any issues, I'm just wondering if there is anything cheaper, and also thinking about redundancy.
Most of the VPS providers that I've seen are US based, which means 150ms+ pings, which isn't great for SSH.
Most of the VPS providers that I've seen are US based, which means 150ms+ pings, which isn't great for SSH.
Linode also has London-based servers...
Rackspace UK's cloud offering is pretty much a VPS with a nice API - it works well and is cheap.
Brightbox.com also do good options for UK based VMs
Brightbox.com also do good options for UK based VMs
Same here. I have an $8/mo prgmr.com VPS and a $10/mo. Rackspace cloud instance. Both running Ubuntu LTS with similar options, but the Rackspace box has more disk and is generally more responsive.
Given the "I'm gonna break something" feeling I get when using the Xen console on prgmr coupled with my desire to kill and rebuild VMs regularly I'll probably just stick with Rackspace in the future.
Given the "I'm gonna break something" feeling I get when using the Xen console on prgmr coupled with my desire to kill and rebuild VMs regularly I'll probably just stick with Rackspace in the future.
I am an happy Quickweb (http://quickweb.co.nz) customer.
They are cheaper than Linode and they have some nice micro vps offers too.
They are also providing hosting services to LEB (http://www.lowendbox.com)
They are also providing hosting services to LEB (http://www.lowendbox.com)
I am also happy Quickweb customer, although I only use their VPS for OpenVPN and to compile stuff on Linux. Stuff compiles more quickly on the VPS than on my 2010 MacBook Pro, which means processor and IO performance are good.
They've lost my data twice in a 2 year period, but for 4.95 a month I was kind of expecting it. But now they moved my VPS to another node and all should be fine. Which brings us to customer support: it is absolutely great and they respont to tickets very quickly.
So: use for non-critical stuff, backup, and be happy.
They've lost my data twice in a 2 year period, but for 4.95 a month I was kind of expecting it. But now they moved my VPS to another node and all should be fine. Which brings us to customer support: it is absolutely great and they respont to tickets very quickly.
So: use for non-critical stuff, backup, and be happy.
.co.nz (New Zealand) doesn't sound like a reasonable alternative for Europe.
Their servers are in the US, UK, and Germany. http://quickweb.co.nz/supa-vps-plans.html
https://www.jiffybox.de/ is excellent.
I've used Gandi for a few years on one project. https://www.gandi.net/hosting/vps
The price was right at the time, and they have a few basic cloud-style features (so not just a barebones VPS provider.)
The price was right at the time, and they have a few basic cloud-style features (so not just a barebones VPS provider.)
I use www.glesys.se, they have hosting at two locations in Sweden, but also New York and Amsterdam. I'm quite happy with them for the 100 SEK i pay per month for some MFA sites.
Take a look @ VR - http://www.vr.org/lg/ you can ping+trace test etc from 11 locations, including 3 in europe.
futureVPS (KVM), based in germany: https://futurevps.de/
Anyone here who knows/has experience with Hetzner?
http://www.hetzner.de/en
Ok, decided to give them a try, so I went for the cheapest option vServer VQ 7 for a small test drive, within a few hours I had access to my server, before that I got a request for an ID of some sort copy (about 30min after registering), send it and everything went smoothly.
Now about the server connection:
http://cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test - 104,857,600 16.6M/s in 6.5s - Earlier got around 20M/s
ftp://ftp.nfsi.pt/pub/speedtest/100mb.bin - 104,857,600 694K/s in 2m 17s - Note that this is a portuguese server and the only one I know of a file with 100mb
These are downstream into the VPS, outside I can't test properly, because I don't have a good connection for that.
About the server setup etc, being a Gentoo user, decided to install it (I previously checked if it was possible), they provide a recovery image that you can use to boot, and did the installation from there, no problems so far.
Their web interface is pretty simple and easy to use, no regrets so far but I still have 30days ahead.
Now about the server connection:
http://cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test - 104,857,600 16.6M/s in 6.5s - Earlier got around 20M/s
ftp://ftp.nfsi.pt/pub/speedtest/100mb.bin - 104,857,600 694K/s in 2m 17s - Note that this is a portuguese server and the only one I know of a file with 100mb
These are downstream into the VPS, outside I can't test properly, because I don't have a good connection for that.
About the server setup etc, being a Gentoo user, decided to install it (I previously checked if it was possible), they provide a recovery image that you can use to boot, and did the installation from there, no problems so far.
Their web interface is pretty simple and easy to use, no regrets so far but I still have 30days ahead.
I would like to see a review as well, they get mentioned a lot but I've not actually seen a recommendation.
If you prefer to have your VPS shielded behind a heavy firewall, why not. But in case you ever intend to do outgoing calls from the server on ports other then the default (80, 443, ...), prepare yourself to do some wrestling with the support and have the IPs of the hosts you want to connect ready. And it /will/ take some time. That's just one of the issues I had to repeatedly deal with. (Consuming some foreign service).
Probably that's why I encountered the limit of about 100 reqs per second when was stress testing my hetzner VPS from the outside.
As long as the default ones are open and without restriction I wouldnt have much problems.
Can only speak for their dedicated servers. We have one there for almost two years now. Excellent price for the hardware you get. Had a few support requests (nothing hardware-related), all answered in a few minutes. Very good control panel too.
Know a few people using their dedicated boxes for quite some time too. All happy. :)
Recently we leased a Kimsufi/OVH dedicated box with ProxMox installed. Similar price (without setup fee) and it's been running without an hiccup. Had to make a phone call to support about a billing issue (my mistake) and it was immediately resolved.
From my experience, it doesn't get much better quality/price wise than these two, in Europe.
Recently we leased a Kimsufi/OVH dedicated box with ProxMox installed. Similar price (without setup fee) and it's been running without an hiccup. Had to make a phone call to support about a billing issue (my mistake) and it was immediately resolved.
From my experience, it doesn't get much better quality/price wise than these two, in Europe.
I've used their cheapest monthly VPS for about 18 months. Provisioning was excellent, uptime also. On the one occasion I needed support they were responsive and my problem was solved promptly. Web-based console access a nice feature.
They experienced a break-in a few months back. Communication to customers was clear, timely and reassuring. (All companies experience problems at some point, it's how they react to those problems that is important. Hetzner's response was very good).
Some small amount of their site/documentation is in German. That's not a big deal (google translate or whatever) and generally it is only the more obscure corners.
Disk size might be limiting on the cheaper offerings (20GB / 7.90 EUR).
I have not experienced the "heavy firewalling" mentioned elsewhere in this thread but I haven't tried putting any serious traffic through it.
Overall very positive.
They experienced a break-in a few months back. Communication to customers was clear, timely and reassuring. (All companies experience problems at some point, it's how they react to those problems that is important. Hetzner's response was very good).
Some small amount of their site/documentation is in German. That's not a big deal (google translate or whatever) and generally it is only the more obscure corners.
Disk size might be limiting on the cheaper offerings (20GB / 7.90 EUR).
I have not experienced the "heavy firewalling" mentioned elsewhere in this thread but I haven't tried putting any serious traffic through it.
Overall very positive.
I've been using one of their dedicated servers for almost two years now and am very happy with it.
My cousin has been using them for approx. 5 years and he's also very happy with them. He's also had them do a non-standard custom setup for a client before and that seems to have went well and painlessly.
My cousin has been using them for approx. 5 years and he's also very happy with them. He's also had them do a non-standard custom setup for a client before and that seems to have went well and painlessly.
I've been using DirectSpace [1] for quite some time now and I see no other mention of it.
I signed up when the 512mb instance was only $4/mo, but it seems they've upped it to $8/mo now. Anyway I haven't experienced any significant downtime or bad performance, but then I'm not doing anything important on it. I also have no clue about their customer service level since I've never used it.
[1] http://directspace.net/webhosting/vps/inventory.php
I signed up when the 512mb instance was only $4/mo, but it seems they've upped it to $8/mo now. Anyway I haven't experienced any significant downtime or bad performance, but then I'm not doing anything important on it. I also have no clue about their customer service level since I've never used it.
[1] http://directspace.net/webhosting/vps/inventory.php
"These virtual machines, called Virtual Private Servers (or VPS's), are cheap. You can get your own instance of linux for very very little money. Like $10 a month, sometimes less."
The Dutch company Versio (domains, shared hosting, dedicated, vps, colocation) hosts VPSes from as little as €5,-/month. You need to pay in 3 month terms, though. I don't really mean to adverstise, but why did this page make it to the HN homepage?
The Dutch company Versio (domains, shared hosting, dedicated, vps, colocation) hosts VPSes from as little as €5,-/month. You need to pay in 3 month terms, though. I don't really mean to adverstise, but why did this page make it to the HN homepage?
Probably because I posted it at like 4 am on a Sunday... and it's obviously not a rigorous comparasion - more like a walk through a swamp...
For those in Singapore (or neighboring countries), try ExpertVM (http://expertvm.com/).
I have been using them for hosting small Django sites and running SVM classification without any issues. It's cheap if you want to have a VPS to play around with different OS-es (you can reinstall a new OS via the control panel).
I have been using them for hosting small Django sites and running SVM classification without any issues. It's cheap if you want to have a VPS to play around with different OS-es (you can reinstall a new OS via the control panel).
I would have liked to see some other factors weighed as well such as type of CPU used for systems, disk IO, service APIs, management tools. Considering that ~10Mbps was considered to be "blazing fast", I find the internet IO benchmark to be spurious. I just ran the same test from a Linode in Dallas and 18Mbps.
I've been using ArpNetworks for a year now and I am very pleased with their service. $10 a month minimum, lightly loaded servers, and they also support OpenBSD and FreeBSD on KVM (beside linux) which is great (and rare). Very responsive support too.
http://arpnetworks.com
http://arpnetworks.com
It's a shame to just write off KVM like that, but to each their own, I suppose.
as mentioned above, futureVPS supports KVM (but they're in germany).
Does anyone have any experience with FanaticalVPS? I've heard good things - apparently they don't oversell, for one.
http://fanaticalvps.com/
http://fanaticalvps.com/
What?
No Chunkhost. I signed up for the beta and now pay for a Xen machine with 512 MB of RAM for only 14 dollars.
No Chunkhost. I signed up for the beta and now pay for a Xen machine with 512 MB of RAM for only 14 dollars.
Rackspace is comparable in price and configuration to several of those he mentions.
This is spam
Using the advice of this site I signed up for an empire hosting account.
Selected the server and options I wanted, submitted my billing information and got four emails welcoming me and informing me that my account had been created.
Logged into the back end to be informed that my ip address had been baned and I could not access the system.
Contacted support via the live support widget and was informed that to be able to access my system I would have to disconnect from the proxy I was using and use the ip address my ISP provided.
The proxy I was connected through is a linode server that I run and manage, the proxy connection was an SSH Dynamic proxy because I was sitting in a coffee shop.
When I am using public wifi I secure my connection over SSH and route all my browser data through that secure link.
Because I control both ends of the link (my laptop and the 'proxy') I trust that connection more then I do the owners of a wifi hotspot.
I was informed that I would be unable to use the empire hosting account I created unless I direct connected.
Canceled order.
I will stick with Linode, which has NEVER given me a single issue and whos service seems better.
edited to add With them being nice enough to send me back my password in clear text I am glad I used the ssh proxy.