5 ms·

You could rent a couple of 1USD/month VPS, or if really on a budget rent a bunch of containers with ipv6 for just a few cents

by z3t4 6y ago

contingencies 6y ago
You absolutely could. But you wouldn't learn how to build a system that recovers from yanking a power or network cable, wouldn't own it, and wouldn't be able to run it on your terms. You'd need a credit card with an American-run payments network to operate, with a declared identity and a bank account, for which a prerequisite is a few months of stable living and income in a particular jurisdiction, itself something large portions of the world do not have access to. Further you'd need to be happy with the fact none of your data was in your country, under your physical control, and never would be. But feel free to ignore the rest of the world and the fact that all this rental crap runs on open source software, just throw in the towel and be a rent-payer: a strategy that has its perks and efficiencies, for sure. But don't discourage those who seek to learn more.
- Symbiote 6y ago
  https://ipv6onlyhosting.com/ https://ipv6onlyhosting.com/ is the first result, and accepts payment by bank transfer. Many other small VM hosts accept payment by Bitcoin.
- notwedtm 6y ago
  > You'd need a credit card with an American-run payments network to operate, with a declared identity and a bank account, for which a prerequisite is a few months of stable living and income in a particular jurisdiction, None of this is true.
  - contingencies 6y ago
    Try being from a random South Asian or African village. Tell me how you go buying cloud services with your nonexistant banking infrastructure and personal credit line.
    - nl 6y ago
      The physical location of a person isn't generally the key barrier to being unbanked; instead it's poverty. "The most common one was having too little money to use an account. Two-thirds cited this as a reason for not having a financial institution account, and roughly a fifth cited it as the sole reason. Cost and distance were each cited by about a quarter of those responding to the question, and a similar share said they do not have an account because a family member already has one. Lack of documentation and distrust in the financial system were both cited by roughly a fifth of adults without a financial institution account, and religious concerns by 6%." https://www.cashmatters.org/blog/globally-17-billion-people-did-not-have-bank-accounts-in-2017-world-bank-2018/ https://www.cashmatters.org/blog/globally-17-billion-people-... (And to state the obvious: poverty is also a barrier to owning physical infrastructure)
    - Koshkin 6y ago
      No, try buying cloud services while living in a remote village where clothing is non-existent.
- analognoise 6y ago
  This sounds like some kind of fantasy; how many people without stable living conditions or without a bank account that can be processed by the US are concerned with...cluster computing? "What about all the homeless Iranian Ferrari owners!" doesn't seem like much of a rallying cry.
  - mjgs 6y ago
    Surely if there is even 1 unbanked person in existence that is interested in cluster computing, then this is a worthwhile endeavour.
    - analognoise 6y ago
      No, absolutely not. Or maybe to Don Quixote, but he was famously delusional.
      - mjgs 6y ago
        Is there any number of unbanked people showing interest in cluster computing that would change your opinion?
        analognoise 6y ago
        I "show an interest" in space, but I'm not entitled/deluded enough to expect someone to deliver a shuttle to me, because that would be a waste of time/materials/energy/money. It's the same here.
        mjgs 6y ago
        If you had spoken to people in the 1960s and told them how many transistors we would have on a chip in 2020, they probably would have called you delusional. Also you are comparing a space shuttle to a few raspberry pis, hardly apples with apples.
- beckingz 6y ago
  Someone needs to invent a way to drop things off your desk onto a power switch via ssh.
whymarrh 6y ago
Where does one find VPSs this cheap?
- tazard 6y ago
  RamNode has some starting at $15/year on their OpenVZ platform. Have been happy enough with that for several years now, although it's quite limited as to what it can do in terms of performance. But as another commentor mentioned, check out LowEndBox. It's where I discovered this.
- JosephRedfern 6y ago
  A few years ago I could vouch for LowEndBox: https://lowendbox.com/ https://lowendbox.com/. I've not frequented the site in a very long time though, so can longer be sure.
- z3t4 6y ago
  https://www.serverhunter.com/ https://www.serverhunter.com/
tutfbhuf 6y ago
From my experience the cheapest reliable ones in terms of storage, cpu, ram performance come at about 3$/month (+-50 cent). I can recommend Hetzner.
bstar77 6y ago
One issue I have with going the VPS route is that what I'm charged is often not what I'm expecting. I will use estimation calculators and figure my bill will be $25/month (which I get for a couple months) and then suddenly get a $120 bill. This has happened more than once and has had me loose all confidence in these services for hobby projects. I'd rather just buy a Pi cluster at this point.
- z3t4 6y ago
  Your agreement was $25/month, so if they start to charge you $120 you pay them $25 and then cancel the service. This is very annoying but do happen dealing with unscrupulous businesses. Although if they have 500% margin eg. you pay $5 for something you can get for $1 elsewhere they will care more about keeping you as a customer. Compared to for example a cloud bill, renting a VPS is both cheaper and more predictive. If you are however paying $25/month you should start looking at dedicated servers, where all resources are preserved for you.
- jacob019 6y ago
  Sounds like AWS or one of the big guys. The smaller providers usually have an all in price for a VPS with a fixed amount of rosources, no surprises. Lightsail is similar but kind of sucks.
  - bstar77 6y ago
    Yeah, it's AWS. In the future I'll be looking at the smaller providers.
luzer7 6y ago
Any links to an ok $1 VPS that would work? I tried a few a while back and always have an issue with RAM. What's the best way to go about clusters since I think you need 1gb RAM per node and lowest I've seen is $5. Thanks

You could rent a couple of 1USD/month VPS, or if really on a budget rent a bunch of containers with ipv6 for just a few cents

by z3t4 6y ago

You could rent a couple of 1USD/month VPS, or if really on a budget rent a bunch of containers with ipv6 for just a few cents

contingencies 6y ago

You absolutely could. But you wouldn't learn how to build a system that recovers from yanking a power or network cable, wouldn't own it, and wouldn't be able to run it on your terms. You'd need a credit card with an American-run payments network to operate, with a declared identity and a bank account, for which a prerequisite is a few months of stable living and income in a particular jurisdiction, itself something large portions of the world do not have access to. Further you'd need to be happy with the fact none of your data was in your country, under your physical control, and never would be. But feel free to ignore the rest of the world and the fact that all this rental crap runs on open source software, just throw in the towel and be a rent-payer: a strategy that has its perks and efficiencies, for sure. But don't discourage those who seek to learn more.

Symbiote 6y ago
https://ipv6onlyhosting.com/ https://ipv6onlyhosting.com/ is the first result, and accepts payment by bank transfer. Many other small VM hosts accept payment by Bitcoin.
notwedtm 6y ago
> You'd need a credit card with an American-run payments network to operate, with a declared identity and a bank account, for which a prerequisite is a few months of stable living and income in a particular jurisdiction, None of this is true.
- contingencies 6y ago
  Try being from a random South Asian or African village. Tell me how you go buying cloud services with your nonexistant banking infrastructure and personal credit line.
  - nl 6y ago
    The physical location of a person isn't generally the key barrier to being unbanked; instead it's poverty. "The most common one was having too little money to use an account. Two-thirds cited this as a reason for not having a financial institution account, and roughly a fifth cited it as the sole reason. Cost and distance were each cited by about a quarter of those responding to the question, and a similar share said they do not have an account because a family member already has one. Lack of documentation and distrust in the financial system were both cited by roughly a fifth of adults without a financial institution account, and religious concerns by 6%." https://www.cashmatters.org/blog/globally-17-billion-people-did-not-have-bank-accounts-in-2017-world-bank-2018/ https://www.cashmatters.org/blog/globally-17-billion-people-... (And to state the obvious: poverty is also a barrier to owning physical infrastructure)
  - Koshkin 6y ago
    No, try buying cloud services while living in a remote village where clothing is non-existent.
analognoise 6y ago
This sounds like some kind of fantasy; how many people without stable living conditions or without a bank account that can be processed by the US are concerned with...cluster computing? "What about all the homeless Iranian Ferrari owners!" doesn't seem like much of a rallying cry.
- mjgs 6y ago
  Surely if there is even 1 unbanked person in existence that is interested in cluster computing, then this is a worthwhile endeavour.
  - analognoise 6y ago
    No, absolutely not. Or maybe to Don Quixote, but he was famously delusional.
    - mjgs 6y ago
      Is there any number of unbanked people showing interest in cluster computing that would change your opinion?
      - analognoise 6y ago
        I "show an interest" in space, but I'm not entitled/deluded enough to expect someone to deliver a shuttle to me, because that would be a waste of time/materials/energy/money. It's the same here.
        mjgs 6y ago
        If you had spoken to people in the 1960s and told them how many transistors we would have on a chip in 2020, they probably would have called you delusional. Also you are comparing a space shuttle to a few raspberry pis, hardly apples with apples.
beckingz 6y ago
Someone needs to invent a way to drop things off your desk onto a power switch via ssh.

whymarrh 6y ago

Where does one find VPSs this cheap?

tazard 6y ago
RamNode has some starting at $15/year on their OpenVZ platform. Have been happy enough with that for several years now, although it's quite limited as to what it can do in terms of performance. But as another commentor mentioned, check out LowEndBox. It's where I discovered this.
JosephRedfern 6y ago
A few years ago I could vouch for LowEndBox: https://lowendbox.com/ https://lowendbox.com/. I've not frequented the site in a very long time though, so can longer be sure.
z3t4 6y ago
https://www.serverhunter.com/ https://www.serverhunter.com/

tutfbhuf 6y ago

From my experience the cheapest reliable ones in terms of storage, cpu, ram performance come at about 3$/month (+-50 cent). I can recommend Hetzner.

bstar77 6y ago

One issue I have with going the VPS route is that what I'm charged is often not what I'm expecting. I will use estimation calculators and figure my bill will be $25/month (which I get for a couple months) and then suddenly get a $120 bill. This has happened more than once and has had me loose all confidence in these services for hobby projects. I'd rather just buy a Pi cluster at this point.

z3t4 6y ago
Your agreement was $25/month, so if they start to charge you $120 you pay them $25 and then cancel the service. This is very annoying but do happen dealing with unscrupulous businesses. Although if they have 500% margin eg. you pay $5 for something you can get for $1 elsewhere they will care more about keeping you as a customer. Compared to for example a cloud bill, renting a VPS is both cheaper and more predictive. If you are however paying $25/month you should start looking at dedicated servers, where all resources are preserved for you.
jacob019 6y ago
Sounds like AWS or one of the big guys. The smaller providers usually have an all in price for a VPS with a fixed amount of rosources, no surprises. Lightsail is similar but kind of sucks.
- bstar77 6y ago
  Yeah, it's AWS. In the future I'll be looking at the smaller providers.

luzer7 6y ago

Any links to an ok $1 VPS that would work? I tried a few a while back and always have an issue with RAM. What's the best way to go about clusters since I think you need 1gb RAM per node and lowest I've seen is $5. Thanks