5 ms·

Don't trust your business with Linode

71 points by alvivar 4y ago

LinuxBender 4y ago
My personal preference rather than picking X over Y VPS provider is to spread my nodes out across several of them. This would especially be the case if I were running a revenue generating business. Providers have unplanned outages. Support teams of an individual provider can get overwhelmed and take lazy actions like those in this tweet. By having applications and data distributed over multiple providers automation can change DNS when a provider is having issues even if said issues are self inflicted such as a lazy over-reaction to an abuse report. It may not be feasible for a company to have all their data replicated on all providers. This is probably OK. N+1 for hard to replicate data may be sufficient to have a degraded service rather than a full site down critical outage. Another benefit to having multiple providers is letting them know the better they treat you, the more significant weight your automation will give to spinning up nodes there. Make them compete for your money.
j_ckley 4y ago
Hey folks, Jim at Linode here – wanted to offer some general information about our abuse practices and policies: When we receive a valid abuse report that resolves to one of our IPs, we open a ticket (and send an email) to let you know. The ticket provides details about the abuse report we received, how to resolve it, and the timeframe in which we need a response before we remove access to the abusive content. Since most abuse reports we process are the result of a system compromise and aren't intentional, we can be flexible. If you need additional time to investigate an abuse report we've sent you, all you need to do is respond to our ticket and ask. If you dispute the validity of a report or believe an abuse reporter is acting in bad faith, that's feedback we listen to – you just need to respond to our ticket. In general, if you're communicating with us and acting in good faith, we'll work with you on these matters.
waydegg 4y ago
Has anyone else had issues with Linode before? While this specific situation sucks, I feel like I’ve seen much more headache with AWS/GCP/Azure regarding people getting completely locked out of stuff.
- LinuxBender 4y ago
  I had a Garry's Mod server on Linode for a while. A player was upset they were banned and reported my instance for DDoSing them. Linode rate limited my node. I replied to the ticket saying, "How am I DDoSing someone when the bandwidth/packet-rate graphs you host show I am not?" to which they acknowledged it was a false report, unrestricted my node and closed the ticket. Not a big deal but still odd that they did not first check their own bandwidth graphs. That to me appeared to be a front-line customer support training issue. I should add that the player was really upset that their exploit code could not crash my server. It happened a couple times so I found the packet that took it down and used a simple iptables string filter to drop it. That is when they went with the false reporting tactic.
- metadat 4y ago
  It's always a risk when you're leasing computer resources from a 3rd party. At least if you own the hardware, you won't lose your data (except in extreme cases where the government takes it, but if this is the case you're screwed and data / service loss is the least of your worries).
  - quickthrower2 4y ago
    People have backups on another cloud / on premise right?
    - metadat 4y ago
      That's a lot of work to do right. Probably rare in the wild.
      - Grimburger 4y ago
        > That's a lot of work to do right. Compared to? Backups are something you should have regardless, an account with other providers and means to spin up some nodes is just basic common sense. Vote with your wallet, let the execs know and never come back, it's honestly that simple.
RockRobotRock 4y ago
My friend just got pwned by a malicious itch.io game a few days ago. They didn't reply to my report, but seemed to have taken it down after a couple days.
- iKlsR 4y ago
  Later versions of windows 10 and up has a sandbox feature (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/threat-protection/windows-sandbox/windows-sandbox-overview https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/threat-pr...) you can enable to run random exes, also advised you keep a free malware scanner active etc. I resurrected an ancient piece of hardware recently and in the hunt for drivers these were key.
  - RockRobotRock 4y ago
    Seems like a great feature! Judging from VirusTotal results, this was nearly undetectable.
  - no_time 4y ago
    Last time I checked it didn't have gpu acceleration or it was so buggy that games just crashed regardless.
derkades 4y ago
This is why I like hosting providers that totally ignore reports/DMCA. Even if you're not doing anything illegal, it's good to know your server won't get taken down randomly because of a false report.
- ashwagary 4y ago
  What are some hosting providers that fit this criteria?
  - nora-puchreiner 4y ago
    Njal.la P.S. Also. I would avoid hosters (and other Internet services) that have political slogans on their site ("support Ukraine", "BLM", whatever). They will easily turn off paying customers for the sake of agenda and virtue signaling, whether it comes from a news feed or a single abuse complaint.

71 points by alvivar 4y ago

My personal preference rather than picking X over Y VPS provider is to spread my nodes out across several of them. This would especially be the case if I were running a revenue generating business. Providers have unplanned outages. Support teams of an individual provider can get overwhelmed and take lazy actions like those in this tweet. By having applications and data distributed over multiple providers automation can change DNS when a provider is having issues even if said issues are self inflicted such as a lazy over-reaction to an abuse report. It may not be feasible for a company to have all their data replicated on all providers. This is probably OK. N+1 for hard to replicate data may be sufficient to have a degraded service rather than a full site down critical outage. Another benefit to having multiple providers is letting them know the better they treat you, the more significant weight your automation will give to spinning up nodes there. Make them compete for your money.

j_ckley 4y ago

Hey folks, Jim at Linode here – wanted to offer some general information about our abuse practices and policies: When we receive a valid abuse report that resolves to one of our IPs, we open a ticket (and send an email) to let you know. The ticket provides details about the abuse report we received, how to resolve it, and the timeframe in which we need a response before we remove access to the abusive content. Since most abuse reports we process are the result of a system compromise and aren't intentional, we can be flexible. If you need additional time to investigate an abuse report we've sent you, all you need to do is respond to our ticket and ask. If you dispute the validity of a report or believe an abuse reporter is acting in bad faith, that's feedback we listen to – you just need to respond to our ticket. In general, if you're communicating with us and acting in good faith, we'll work with you on these matters.

waydegg 4y ago

Has anyone else had issues with Linode before? While this specific situation sucks, I feel like I’ve seen much more headache with AWS/GCP/Azure regarding people getting completely locked out of stuff.

LinuxBender 4y ago
I had a Garry's Mod server on Linode for a while. A player was upset they were banned and reported my instance for DDoSing them. Linode rate limited my node. I replied to the ticket saying, "How am I DDoSing someone when the bandwidth/packet-rate graphs you host show I am not?" to which they acknowledged it was a false report, unrestricted my node and closed the ticket. Not a big deal but still odd that they did not first check their own bandwidth graphs. That to me appeared to be a front-line customer support training issue. I should add that the player was really upset that their exploit code could not crash my server. It happened a couple times so I found the packet that took it down and used a simple iptables string filter to drop it. That is when they went with the false reporting tactic.
metadat 4y ago
It's always a risk when you're leasing computer resources from a 3rd party. At least if you own the hardware, you won't lose your data (except in extreme cases where the government takes it, but if this is the case you're screwed and data / service loss is the least of your worries).
- quickthrower2 4y ago
  People have backups on another cloud / on premise right?
  - metadat 4y ago
    That's a lot of work to do right. Probably rare in the wild.
    - Grimburger 4y ago
      > That's a lot of work to do right. Compared to? Backups are something you should have regardless, an account with other providers and means to spin up some nodes is just basic common sense. Vote with your wallet, let the execs know and never come back, it's honestly that simple.

RockRobotRock 4y ago

My friend just got pwned by a malicious itch.io game a few days ago. They didn't reply to my report, but seemed to have taken it down after a couple days.

iKlsR 4y ago
Later versions of windows 10 and up has a sandbox feature (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/threat-protection/windows-sandbox/windows-sandbox-overview https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/threat-pr...) you can enable to run random exes, also advised you keep a free malware scanner active etc. I resurrected an ancient piece of hardware recently and in the hunt for drivers these were key.
- RockRobotRock 4y ago
  Seems like a great feature! Judging from VirusTotal results, this was nearly undetectable.
- no_time 4y ago
  Last time I checked it didn't have gpu acceleration or it was so buggy that games just crashed regardless.

derkades 4y ago

This is why I like hosting providers that totally ignore reports/DMCA. Even if you're not doing anything illegal, it's good to know your server won't get taken down randomly because of a false report.

ashwagary 4y ago
What are some hosting providers that fit this criteria?
- nora-puchreiner 4y ago
  Njal.la P.S. Also. I would avoid hosters (and other Internet services) that have political slogans on their site ("support Ukraine", "BLM", whatever). They will easily turn off paying customers for the sake of agenda and virtue signaling, whether it comes from a news feed or a single abuse complaint.