Uses for a few short-term VPSes

tetechtetech OG
edited January 2022 in General

I'm cleaning house and have a few (7 +/- 1) VPSes that I'm not going to renew. They have at least 5 months remaining on the term and in one case over a year. They're generally lower-end, 0.5-4GB RAM, various storage/locations.

I'll probably make a couple available for transfer soon, but they're low-cost so in general the amount I'd recover wouldn't be worth it, particularly in cases where an admin fee is charged. So I was wondering whether any short-term community project makes sense.

They're already running nested LXC containers in a private/encrypted cloud. It would be trivial to hand out a few free LXC containers. But I'm hesitant to do this (even with severe constraints) because I don't want the headache of dealing with the inevitable abuse and I'm not sure if having it short-term (~6-ish months) is useful to anyone. Plus I don't have a provider tag and don't know where this would land me.

I did wonder about leveraging the encrypted cloud part - you could access the LXC in one location with storage mounted from another, for example. So for now I'll just put it out there for thoughts.

RAM  Storage  Processor (FSU)  BW (TB)  Location
0.5G  60GB    2x Ryzen 3700X   0.5      Amsterdam
0.5G  250GB   1x Xeon E5-2620  2.0      Amsterdam
1.0G  17GB    1x Xeon E5-2680  3.0      Amsterdam
2.0G  15GB    1x Xeon E5-2690  0.8      Buffalo
1.0G  15GB    1x ?             5.0      Chicago
1.0G  15GB    1x Ryzen 3950X   1.0      Dallas
1.0G  5GB     1x ?             1.0      Düsseldorf
4.0G  10GB    1x Xeon E5-2690  1.0      Hong Kong

It isn't a crisis if they just idle out, so not trying to force anything here.

(No, I won't give/sell/rent my account info to you; No, don't PM me asking for something)

Thanked by (1)chocolateshirt
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Comments

  • AstroAstro

    You don't have to sell your account info you can just transfer them to others.

    Thanked by (1)Sanjue007

    Team push-ups!

  • Not_OlesNot_Oles Hosting ProviderContent Writer

    Hi @tetech! If you wanna give me the Dallas instance, it might be helpful. If you can sell the transfer, that's fine. If somebody else wants it for free, it's no big deal. I might just run some network tests involving your Dallas instance and two other servers I already have in Dallas.

    Thanks for thinking of giving away stuff within the LES community! ✨💖

    Thanked by (1)Astro

    I hope everyone gets the servers they want!

  • AstroAstro

    I'm interested in the 1st and second Amsterdam machines.

    Team push-ups!

  • tetechtetech OG
    edited January 2022

    @Sensei said:
    You don't have to sell your account info you can just transfer them to others.

    Perhaps the original post wasn't clear on this. For a small number, yes it does make sense to transfer, and for those ones I will generally ask for the pro-rated amount remaining on the term. That's the "I'll probably make a couple available for transfer soon" part. I'll do that separately.

    However, for most on the list either (a) the VPS providers do not permit transfers, or (b) they are charging a high admin fee which in some cases is more than the renewal price of the VPS (if people want to pay it then OK, but I don't think there would be much interest). These ones I am basically expecting to be "stuck" with and am trying to do something useful besides idle them for 6-12 months.

  • GanonkGanonk

    what the price of each?

  • curlcurl

    I understand it is only for short-term but if you eventually go handing out any LXC container, I would still love to try it out. :)

  • tetechtetech OG

    @Ganonk said:
    what the price of each?

    That's irrelevant, since they're not up for transfer at this moment.

    Thanked by (1)kkrajk
  • tetechtetech OG

    @Not_Oles said: I might just run some network tests involving your Dallas instance and two other servers I already have in Dallas.

    If you want to collaborate more generally on network tests in Dallas, let me know. I have 8 KVMs being actively used in Dallas at the moment. Unfortunately they are a bit concentrated at Carrier-1 but I've got a few at other DCs like Infomart and Digital Realty.

    Thanked by (1)Not_Oles
  • FalzoFalzo

    @tetech said: No, I won't give/sell/rent my account info to you; No, don't PM me asking for something

    good luck with that. people do not read, they only "look". and all they see is a list of possibly cheap service and the word transfer somewhere in between - no matter the context.

    you probably won't get any useful answers to your actual question anyway, but tons of question like who, where, when, and most importantly: how much :lol:

    Thanked by (5)tetech cybertech Ganonk yoursunny skorous
  • tetechtetech OG

    @Falzo said:

    @tetech said: No, I won't give/sell/rent my account info to you; No, don't PM me asking for something

    good luck with that. people do not read, they only "look". and all they see is a list of possibly cheap service and the word transfer somewhere in between - no matter the context.

    you probably won't get any useful answers to your actual question anyway, but tons of question like who, where, when, and most importantly: how much :lol:

    True, true.

  • vyasvyas OG
    edited January 2022

    @Falzo said:

    @tetech said: No, I won't give/sell/rent my account info to you; No, don't PM me asking for something

    good luck with that. people do not read, they only "look". and all they see is a list of possibly cheap service and the word transfer somewhere in between - no matter the context.

    you probably won't get any useful answers to your actual question anyway, but tons of question like who, where, when, and most importantly: how much :lol:

    And….
    There is the ever popular
    $7 !

    Thanked by (1)Ganonk

    ———-
    blog | exploring visually |

  • GanonkGanonk

    @vyas said:

    And….
    There is the ever popular
    $5 !

    Thanked by (1)Not_Oles

  • chimichurrichimichurri
    edited January 2022

    Two ideas:
    1. Check my sig ;) (assuming they come with a dedicated/unlimited CPU, or the provider gives clear limits e.g. no more than 30% of CPU that you could apply on the thing with cpulimit or a cgroup or something )
    2. http://warrior.archiveteam.org/

    Thanked by (1)wankel

    Contribute your idling VPS/dedi (link), Android (link) or iOS (link) devices to medical research

  • yoursunnyyoursunny OG

    @chimichurri said:
    2. http://warrior.archiveteam.org/

    This is what I'm running on servers with spare I/O.
    I use Docker setup for straightforward CPU limits, and haven't ruffled any feathers so far.

    Where's @skorupion on the Reddit leaderboard?

    Thanked by (2)Not_Oles skorupion

    HostBrr aff best VPS; VirmAche aff worst VPS.
    Unable to push-up due to shoulder injury 😣

  • Not_OlesNot_Oles Hosting ProviderContent Writer
    edited January 2022

    @Ganonk said:

    @vyas said:

    And….
    There is the ever popular
    $5 !

    I think it is quite funny how @Ganonk subtracted $2! It's been added to Best-of-LES! :)

    Thanked by (1)Ganonk

    I hope everyone gets the servers they want!

  • vyasvyas OG

    @Not_Oles said:

    @Ganonk said:

    @vyas said:

    And….
    There is the ever popular
    $5 !

    I think it is quite funny how @Ganonk subtracted $2! It's been added to Best-of-LES! :)

    Also
    Possible that
    @Ganonk hangs around with @FAT32 a lot.
    .#squeezeadeal

    Thanked by (3)Ganonk Not_Oles FAT32

    ———-
    blog | exploring visually |

  • tetechtetech OG

    @chimichurri said:
    Two ideas:
    1. Check my sig ;) (assuming they come with a dedicated/unlimited CPU, or the provider gives clear limits e.g. no more than 30% of CPU that you could apply on the thing with cpulimit or a cgroup or something )
    2. http://warrior.archiveteam.org/

    Thanks for the ideas. First one is no go since none of the cores are dedicated and ToS for most of the plans specifically disallows such distributed compute. Second one seems more viable. I'll look at that, thanks again for the idea.

  • BochiBochi OG

    @yoursunny said:
    Where's @skorupion on the Reddit leaderboard?

    Nice, that's me on the list! I should go and find some idler to not loose the spot. :P

  • yoursunnyyoursunny OG

    @Bochi said:
    I should go and find some idler to not loose the spot. :P

    "loose" is not skint.
    It should be "lose".

    Thanked by (2)Bochi Ganonk

    HostBrr aff best VPS; VirmAche aff worst VPS.
    Unable to push-up due to shoulder injury 😣

  • NeoonNeoon OG

    If they would be bigger, more memory and disk, you could run your own microLXC and rent them for whatever.

    Free NAT KVM | Free NAT LXC | Bobr

  • yoursunnyyoursunny OG

    @Neoon said:
    If they would be bigger, more memory and disk, you could run your own microLXC and rent them for whatever.

    Where to get the webapp of microLXC control software?

    Thanked by (1)Not_Oles

    HostBrr aff best VPS; VirmAche aff worst VPS.
    Unable to push-up due to shoulder injury 😣

  • NeoonNeoon OG

    @yoursunny said:

    @Neoon said:
    If they would be bigger, more memory and disk, you could run your own microLXC and rent them for whatever.

    Where to get the webapp of microLXC control software?

    LXD has a JSON API right, he in theory could build it.

    Thanked by (1)Not_Oles

    Free NAT KVM | Free NAT LXC | Bobr

  • yoursunnyyoursunny OG

    @Neoon said:

    @yoursunny said:

    @Neoon said:
    If they would be bigger, more memory and disk, you could run your own microLXC and rent them for whatever.

    Where to get the webapp of microLXC control software?

    LXD has a JSON API right, he in theory could build it.

    It ain't microLXC if it isn't microLXC control software.
    We want the real microLXC control software.

    Thanked by (1)Not_Oles

    HostBrr aff best VPS; VirmAche aff worst VPS.
    Unable to push-up due to shoulder injury 😣

  • NeoonNeoon OG

    @yoursunny said:

    @Neoon said:

    @yoursunny said:

    @Neoon said:
    If they would be bigger, more memory and disk, you could run your own microLXC and rent them for whatever.

    Where to get the webapp of microLXC control software?

    LXD has a JSON API right, he in theory could build it.

    It ain't microLXC if it isn't microLXC control software.
    We want the real microLXC control software.

    That's what she said.

    Thanked by (2)yoursunny Not_Oles

    Free NAT KVM | Free NAT LXC | Bobr

  • tetechtetech OG

    @Neoon said:
    If they would be bigger, more memory and disk, you could run your own microLXC and rent them for whatever.

    How much time do you spend dealing with tech support and/or abuse in that case? Or do your eligibility filters largely solve that.

    Technically, the LXC containers are already running. Potentially there's some things could be done, e.g. 6x 128M on the Amsterdam 1G and then NFS mount 30-40GB disk. From memory they're both in Equinix.

    root@debtest:/# free -m
              total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:            128           9          86           6          31         118
Swap:           256           0         256
root@debtest:/# df -k
Filesystem       1K-blocks   Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/vg0/debtest   1992552 482728   1388584  26% /
none                   492      4       488   1% /dev
devtmpfs            497900      0    497900   0% /dev/tty
tmpfs               503716      0    503716   0% /dev/shm
tmpfs               503716   6648    497068   2% /run
tmpfs                 5120      0      5120   0% /run/lock
    Thanked by (1)Not_Oles
  • NeoonNeoon OG

    @tetech said:

    @Neoon said:
    If they would be bigger, more memory and disk, you could run your own microLXC and rent them for whatever.

    How much time do you spend dealing with tech support and/or abuse in that case? Or do your eligibility filters largely solve that.

    Nearly zero, maybe 1-2 requests per week, abuse is usually 1 or 2 per year.

    Thanked by (3)tetech Not_Oles Ganonk

    Free NAT KVM | Free NAT LXC | Bobr

  • user123user123

    @Neoon said:

    @yoursunny said:

    @Neoon said:

    @yoursunny said:

    @Neoon said:
    If they would be bigger, more memory and disk, you could run your own microLXC and rent them for whatever.

    Where to get the webapp of microLXC control software?

    LXD has a JSON API right, he in theory could build it.

    It ain't microLXC if it isn't microLXC control software.
    We want the real microLXC control software.

    That's what she said.

    Really? She asked you for the software? #doubt

  • tetechtetech OG

    @yoursunny said:

    @Neoon said:

    @yoursunny said:

    @Neoon said:
    If they would be bigger, more memory and disk, you could run your own microLXC and rent them for whatever.

    Where to get the webapp of microLXC control software?

    LXD has a JSON API right, he in theory could build it.

    It ain't microLXC if it isn't microLXC control software.
    We want the real microLXC control software.

    At least I put a routed /64 in each LXC, in this case via tunnelbroker.

    # ./mlxc.sh add --name=debtest2 --mem=128M --swap=256M --disk=2G --cpu=10 --distro=debian --rel=bullseye
CREATING CONTAINER...
Using image from local cache
Unpacking the rootfs

---
You just created a Debian bullseye amd64 (20220108_05:24) container.

To enable SSH, run: apt install openssh-server
No default root or user password are set by LXC.
CONFIGURING RESOURCES...
CONFIGURING NETWORK...
# lxc-attach -n debtest2
root@debtest2:~# ping6 -c 5 google.com
PING google.com(dfw25s25-in-x0e.1e100.net (2607:f8b0:4000:80e::200e)) 56 data bytes
64 bytes from dfw25s25-in-x0e.1e100.net (2607:f8b0:4000:80e::200e): icmp_seq=1 ttl=120 time=1.07 ms
64 bytes from dfw25s25-in-x0e.1e100.net (2607:f8b0:4000:80e::200e): icmp_seq=2 ttl=120 time=1.40 ms
64 bytes from dfw25s25-in-x0e.1e100.net (2607:f8b0:4000:80e::200e): icmp_seq=3 ttl=120 time=1.05 ms
64 bytes from dfw25s25-in-x0e.1e100.net (2607:f8b0:4000:80e::200e): icmp_seq=4 ttl=120 time=1.40 ms
64 bytes from dfw25s25-in-x0e.1e100.net (2607:f8b0:4000:80e::200e): icmp_seq=5 ttl=120 time=1.40 ms

--- google.com ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 5 received, 0% packet loss, time 8035ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 1.052/1.261/1.399/0.165 ms
root@debtest2:~# free -m
               total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:             128           7          97           0          22         120
Swap:            256           0         256
root@debtest2:~# df -k
Filesystem        1K-blocks   Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/vg0/debtest2   1992552 339264   1532048  19% /
none                    492      4       488   1% /dev
devtmpfs             497904      0    497904   0% /dev/tty
tmpfs                503716      0    503716   0% /dev/shm
tmpfs                201488     44    201444   1% /run
tmpfs                  5120      0      5120   0% /run/lock
  • yoursunnyyoursunny OG

    @tetech said:
    At least I put a routed /64 in each LXC, in this case via tunnelbroker.

    # ./mlxc.sh add --name=debtest2 --mem=128M --swap=256M --disk=2G --cpu=10 --distro=debian --rel=bullseye
CREATING CONTAINER...
Using image from local cache
Unpacking the rootfs

---
You just created a Debian bullseye amd64 (20220108_05:24) container.

To enable SSH, run: apt install openssh-server
No default root or user password are set by LXC.
CONFIGURING RESOURCES...
CONFIGURING NETWORK...

    What's in your mlxc.sh?
    It looks useful.

    I'm using Debian 11 lxc-unpriv-create command.
    It can't set any limits on the container, so that every container could use all the RAM and disk on the host machine.
    Not really a problem for internal use though.

    HostBrr aff best VPS; VirmAche aff worst VPS.
    Unable to push-up due to shoulder injury 😣

  • tetechtetech OG

    @yoursunny said:

    @tetech said:
    At least I put a routed /64 in each LXC, in this case via tunnelbroker.

    # ./mlxc.sh add --name=debtest2 --mem=128M --swap=256M --disk=2G --cpu=10 --distro=debian --rel=bullseye
CREATING CONTAINER...
Using image from local cache
Unpacking the rootfs

---
You just created a Debian bullseye amd64 (20220108_05:24) container.

To enable SSH, run: apt install openssh-server
No default root or user password are set by LXC.
CONFIGURING RESOURCES...
CONFIGURING NETWORK...

    What's in your mlxc.sh?
    It looks useful.

    I'm using Debian 11 lxc-unpriv-create command.
    It can't set any limits on the container, so that every container could use all the RAM and disk on the host machine.
    Not really a problem for internal use though.

    The essence of it (cutting out the parameter parsing etc.):

      echo "CREATING CONTAINER..."
  DOWNLOAD_KEYSERVER="keyserver.ubuntu.com" lxc-create --vgname=vg0 -B lvm -n ${NAME} --fssize ${DISK} -t download -- -d ${DISTRO} -r ${REL} -a amd64
  echo "CONFIGURING RESOURCES..."
  echo "lxc.cgroup.memory.limit_in_bytes = ${MEM}" >> /var/lib/lxc/${NAME}/config
  echo "lxc.cgroup.memory.memsw.limit_in_bytes = ${SWAP}" >> /var/lib/lxc/${NAME}/config
  cyc=`echo "50000 100 / ${CPU} * p" | dc`
  echo "lxc.cgroup.cpu.cfs_quota_us=${cyc}" >> /var/lib/lxc/${NAME}/config
  echo "lxc.cgroup.cpu.cfs_period_us=50000" >> /var/lib/lxc/${NAME}/config
  echo "CONFIGURING NETWORK..."
  hwa0="00:16:3e:$(openssl rand -hex 3| sed 's/\(..\)/\1:/g; s/.$//')"
  sed -i -e "s/^\(lxc.net.0.hwaddr\).*/\1 = ${hwa0}/" /var/lib/lxc/${NAME}/config
  lxc-start -n ${NAME}
  lxc-attach -n ${NAME} -- sed -i -e "s/iface eth0.*/iface eth0 inet6 auto/" /etc/network/interfaces
  lxc-attach -n ${NAME} -- bash -c 'echo "nameserver 2606:4700:4700::1111" > /etc/resolv.conf'
  lxc-attach -n ${NAME} -- bash -c 'echo "nameserver 2606:4700:4700::1001" >> /etc/resolv.conf'

    I haven't bothered making my own templates, at least yet. These are unprivileged containers.

    # lxc-ls -f
NAME     STATE   AUTOSTART GROUPS IPV4 IPV6                                  UNPRIVILEGED
debtest  RUNNING 1         -      -    2001:470:xxxx:yyyy:216:3eff:fe52:41d2 true
debtest2 RUNNING 1         -      -    2001:470:xxxx:yyyy:216:3eff:fec8:16cd true
    Thanked by (2)chimichurri yoursunny
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