Slow Servers: FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

Don't I need a IPv4 address?

If you don't or can't have IPv6 connectivity, we may not be the host for you.

However, IPv4 users can still reach your server, depending on the protocol, once setup with SNIProxy. Just send us an email and we can get that setup.

I don't have/like cryptocurrency, can I pay in USD?

You can send cash via the address on the index page.

Why do you only offer one region?

This is a small operation and since we own the hardware, we have to be able to drive to colocate it. We don't really want to drive/maintain servers that are days away. Other hosts cover other areas very well, and some even in the same region we offer!

We'd like to expand into at least one more local region, if our growth is sufficient to warrant it. We have one 1/3 cabinet in Neutron. If we can fill that up, and then a full cabinet, we'll consider having a secondary region or two that's nearby.

Why OpenBSD?

It's true that as a VPS host, OpenBSD's VMM has some features lacking. It can't do more than one vCPU, OpenBSD's scheduling is not as adaptable as say Xen, and disk performance is not as high as other options.

Despite all of this, OpenBSD is the closest thing to a hobbyist/tinkerer distribution (for ease of getting into it) and it's a joy to use. If you've used OpenBSD, you probably have similar thoughts on it. Less bells and whistles, and more consistency.

Do I have to backup my server?

Yes! Absolutely, if anything on the server is of value and can't be trivially recreated.

One option is to create a VPS on two different hosts, and this gives you protection in case one host fails catastrophically and there is data loss.

It doesn't, however, help if there's say a bomb dropped on the datacenter. In that case, it would be good to backup to another place altogether. And that's a wise practice, regardless.

Is swapping allowed?

Swapping, when your server runs out of memory and swaps memory pages to disk, has an extremely negative impact on the host. Especially so because we use mechanical harddrives. A little here and there is fine, but it's encouraged to not allocate a swap partition if you can handle it. However, it can be handy just in case.

768MiB as a minimum size was partly selected because it's roughly the minimum OpenBSD 7.8 can boot on without a swap partition, while still being able to relink the kernel.

Of course, it can be cheap insurance to leave the space available to add a swap partition, if you really need it. Just not good to rely on it.

We may have to power off servers that swap excessively, or cause an incredible amount of disk I/O for other reasons. Normal use is fine, of course!

Can I setup a Tor relay?

Exit, not right now, but possibly in the future. We might also host our own (probably just a relay?), which would eliminiate the benefit from hosting additional in the same infrastructure.

We currently have a 100Mbit/sec connection, so it wouldn't take a whole lot of effort, with Tor, to exhaust that.

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