I know there a number of similar threads already and some people recommend facebook’s Linode and some other VPS providers like Time4VPS but it seems that either you’re getting more in bed with evil or you’re getting a kind of shoddy VPS at best. DigitalOcean is clearly a joke and OVH at the time didn’t have a healthy reputation on their ASN’s
I can recommend Contabo. Been using their STORAGE VPS S at 4.5 euro a month and have not run into a single issue in 18 months.
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Akamai owns Linode, not Facebook. I’ve been running MiaB on a Linode VPS ($5/month) for over 3 years without any problems.
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who do you think owns Akamai
Akamai is a publicly traded corporation.
Thanks for making me verify that was just a rumour. I wonder where it started.
Think I’ll have to do anything special here to get port 25 on Contabo?
Probably because, according to Wikipedia, Facebook was using Akamai’s CDN until the mid-2010s, and the NSA and the FBI reportedly used that CDN to gather information on Facebook users. However, this report does not indicate that Akamai was complicit in this process.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook?Akamai#Content_delivery_network_(CDN)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akamai_Technologies#Controversies
For me it worked ootb. I believe by default it is rate limited.
I bet the rate is way higher than I need anyways.
I’ve been on Linode’s Nanode plan ($5/month) for 5 years with no issues. They were bought recently-ish by Akamai and that initially made a lot of people nervous about how their service might change. They did raise prices, but the Nanode plan stayed at $5 and I haven’t otherwise noticed or heard anyone complaining about the level of service changing.
When I last rebuilt to move to Ubuntu 22.04 I documented and automated as much as I could. You can use the Linode API for a lot of the steps. I chose to use Luks encryption, so I also use the API to help automate reboots.
Anyway, I’ve been keeping my eyes open for alternatives, but so far I haven’t found a reason to leave.
They also have a referral program that gives new accounts $100 for 60 days. So that should be at least two months free, plus some extra if you start up some larger plans for testing. As part of my install process I start with a larger plan, so I don’t have wasted space sitting around after I’m done with the installer image, and then drop the instance down to the Nanode level.
Anyway, here’s my kickback-enabled Linode Referral link.
Feel free to sign up without referral instead.
I used Linode for a good 10 years. Always enjoyed their community, prices and reliability. I jumped ship when they raised prices and were acquired by Akamai. I’m now on Vultr, paying the same price I would on Linode but at least I got a $200 credit so I haven’t technically paid anything. They are fairly similar in features but one thing I experience on Vultr that I never experienced on Linode; actual downtime. Vultr’s maintenance/upgrades routinely affect connectivity. It’s not a huge deal for a mail server but if you rely on your systems being up five nines, Vultr isn’t a place for you.
Other than that, Vultr is fine. I’m sure Linode is fine too. I probably should of just stayed put, but I have a distaste for Akamai based on past experience working with their CDN.
I’ve heard good things about Vultr. Good to know about the downtime. I’ve seen occasional downtime with Linode, but only once did it actually cause me any trouble that I needed to intervene to resolve.
Vultr is on my list if I ever decide Linode needs to be replaced.
This in itself is a pretty good value add, although I have yet to have heard of an instance where hackers have stolen entire VPS’s yet it would be nice to implement. I for one have heard of a tool called DropBear ssh which allegedly can execute before the grub bootloader so that you can authenticate with LUKS remotely. I realize the server itself can be snapshotted in a running state when in the VPS mode or an attacker could use some USB based sidechannels to involuntarily backup some bare metal big iron servers encrypted with LUKS at any point but it might still be a nice thing to add one more layer of potential security against prying eyes.
Time4VPS dropkicked my uptime hard when I was there I’m glad someone recommended Contabo, their IP’s seem clean and you can sideload your own images so no screwy ass crap baked into your os if you don’t want to have it. The one thing though about them is you have to pay like a dollar for custom image storage which kinda sucks. If you don’t need ubuntu however you can go so far as to use RAM disks and chroot’s to drop into an installation ISO of any choosing if you want to go that route. It’s greasy but it works. Ubuntu is kind of out though because they use squashFS into their ISO’s so it makes it kind of horrible to get the installer working from within a chroot.
Another Contabo caveat was that when I had installed their version of Ubuntu 22.04LTS it has a pile of strange customizations in it which caused NSD to fail and nobody had any documented fixes that I could find and the errors seemed oddly ambiguous so I just went with my own image. ALSO their IPv6 is off by default for whatever reason I’m not sure why in 2023 that ipv6 would not simply be on by default everywhere.
I wonder why I got a NSD issue on Contabo’s default image but I’m glad you recommended them they are a great value and have yet to have seen any real issue. Their support system is a bit strange but it at least functions just don’t be in a rush unless maybe they have a paid support tier idk I normally don’t need support but on these VPS providers that are email friendly it often seems that you require support to deal with their idiosyncracies.
Last post can this be marked as solved?
Indeed. I’m using this along with the Linode API to manage reboots. Basically, my script uses the API to reboot the instance and wait for it to be marked online, then connects over SSH to enter the decryption key. That key is stored in my system keychain, so I don’t have to manually enter it.
I only had an issue when i tried to deploy miab without ipv6 on the vps. Once ipv6 was enabled miab ran ootb on Contabo.
Oh that’s cool! at that point you just should have some kind of deadman check where your automation checks every now and then to see if you still breath and if not then not to continue the reboot cycle.