Via this WHT offer. We have previously covered TOCICI’s VPS product. It looks like they have completely revamped their virtual server page, and is now hosting on its own site — BuildYourVPS.com. The model has also changed. Instead of listing out plans, it let you mix ‘n’ match options such as bandwidth, RAM, disk and type of IP connection to come out a final price. So if you choose the cheapest options…
- 16MB burstable memory
- 0.5GB storage
- 1GB/month data transfer
- Nginx Accelerated Shared IP
And it would come out to only $0.75/month! The servers are in Portland OR, and it uses OpenVZ (no control panel AFAIK).
What you can use it for is another interesting question. 16MB burstable might mean you can’t even system level utilities such as apt-get to install/update software. You can probably burn through 1GB of data transfer from just the “noise” on the line. 500MB of disk space is barely enough for the base OS install. Glorified shell account with root access? You don’t even own a public IP.
$0.75*10=$7.5
But at this price I think I can get a much better VPS. Not interesting at all.
Just interesting, not for running sites on it.
interest for experiment:)
I ordered a vps, I want to try it to install a webserver, and run the site with a cms without mysql, very interesting how much will inhibit the miracle of 16 mb.
Eh, if you can upload custom images, slap FreeDOS on there an off you go the races…though I’d doubt you’ll win anything.
It runs OpenVZ so I doubt you can slap FreeDOS onto it. Maybe it could be a business case for virtual private DOS boxes — 640kb ought to be enough!!!
very cheap,
If there was a QNX Demo Disk image for OpenVZ, we’d totally offer that as an OS option (licenses permitting of-course). In the consulting division, a bunch of Linux-based Firewall/NAT/VPN systems are deployed with only 16MB of RAM (granted they’re running a variant of LEAF – an image option not yet available for the VPS environment AFAIK).
In-all, there’s a lot you can still do with a small memory footprint these days, and that’s basically why we’re offering a 16MB option; eager to hear how customers fare, and always open to feedback & suggestions.
Do you provide tun/tap interfaces and iptables nat with masquerade?
Ordered one of these VPSes to play with and it still has yet to be setup after 20 hours….
@Kaito, yes tun/tap interfaces are supported. We’re currently evaluating whether to offer this as a default-on option, although for the time being, please submit a ticket via support@tocici.com to have this added to your VPS.
@Thomas, our ordering system has processed nearly 150 new VPSes over the past week, and we’ve quickly added a few more servers to accommodate additional demands. So, while its possible we overlooked you, after double-checking I don’t show any unprocessed orders from a “Thomas” within the past 36 hours. Please check your spam/junk folder for a setup email, and if you don’t find anything, send an email to support@tocici.com with the email address used in your order. We’ll jump on this ASAP.
ALL – LowEndBox is not a source for official TOCICI support. If you have pre-sales questions, please see the FAQ on our website, or use the email address posted on our site (sales@tocici.com) for further questions. We also have a web-based contact form on the site as well. If you already have a VPS (or have ordered one), and you have a question or feature request, please note the instructions in your setup email(s); send an email to support@tocici.com. Not only will you receive an automated ticket/tracking response to your email, there’s more than one person watching those support queues, and we process tickets in the order that they are created. At the moment, there’s two unanswered tickets in our support & sales queues, and they are both being actively worked on.
[...] found (thanks, LowEndBox) interesting option where you can build your VPS totally custom parameters including shared IP [...]
FTP (proftpd) configuration:
Port 11000
MasqueradeAddress [server's external IP]
PassivePorts 11001 11010
and forward the ports 11000-11010
I would like to report my experience with tocici.
The vps was setup in the deadline they promised (24h).
I took a 75c vps with 16MB RAM, running Debian 4 32 bits.
First I couldnt login, cause the bash was unable to allocate memory, so I ask then to replace with dash, and that was enough. apt-get does not work for the same problem.
I replace sshd with dropbear, that is much lighter. You cant compile nothing either, so I had to wget the pre-compiled from another vps mine.
I am running only ssh using dropbear and nginx and its using only 4MB, but since its a shared ip, I have to pass them the domains, so they can redirect to my vps.
I took this as a challenge to run the tiny vps I´ve ever created!
If I buy an ip address for only $1, I can run a DNS server using MaraDNS or sheerDNS that has the smallest memory footprint that I’ve ever seen for a DNS server.
$1.75 for a DNS server is a very good price, dont you think?
Forget FTP and PHP, you would need 32MB minimum. For mysql, 64MB minimum (for INNODB 256MB).
I ask you to specify the procedure for replacing bash to dash, step by step, and specify how you change the sshd on dropbear. Thanks.
apt-get -y install dash
ln -sf dash /bin/sh
# replace your user shell in /etc/passwd to /bin/sh
wget -N http://matt.ucc.asn.au/dropbear/releases/dropbear_0.52-0.1_i386.deb
dpkg -i dropbear_0.52-0.1_i386.deb
update-rc.d -f ssh remove
killall ssh && /etc/init.d/dropbear start
# something like that, but if you cant apt-get, you would need to do on another vps and download the binaries.
thanks for the instruction. but APT-GET not working.
Other option is to open a support ticket, so they can do this for you, without the memory limitations.
I suggest them to make this the default configuration for 16/32MB VPS.
after
update-rc.d-f ssh remove
killall ssh & & / etc / init.d / dropbear start
ssh off and Dropbear was not enabled. after reboot the server connection is not restored.
Maybe dropbear does not configure automatically.
Check if this file exists: /etc/default/dropbear
If not, try this: echo “DROPBEAR_PORT=22″ > /etc/default/dropbear
Check if dropbear is configured to autostart on reboot.
I cannot access to vps now. Connection with vps not worked.
Open a support ticket so they can do it for you.
Well. After all these support tickets to do trivial stuff because of severely limited VPS, sometimes you got to wonder whether the saving is worth it…
Sure. It´s just for the challenge
The only things I found to run on a 75c vps are:
1) uptime monitoring node using python that is built in.
You could have many nodes for a very low price (5 vps nodes would cost only $3.75)
2) Other long running task like robots (page scraping, search, etc)
3) If you buy an IP address for $1, you can have a DNS node for only $1.75
4) Any other suggestion?
While we’ve been able to do many things with a default of openssh & bash, a few of our customers have been experiencing difficulties with this configuration. We’re running tests on default builds with dropbear and dash now, and will likely be pushing them to staging soon.
As for working with a small VPS, upgrades are cheap; an extra $0.25/month for 32MB of burst RAM, or $0.75/month for 64MB.
to Tocici: I recommend you to organize a forum on your site, to discuss problems. For many this would be useful. also requested to organize a wiki.
))) I have multiple vps, where resources abound for work sites, and I’ve never thought about saving, but it is just that, the plant and that excites the mind:)
I am interested for example, a description of different issues when dealing with such small vps. I have in stock, and other vps, where memory and 512mb and above, but they’ve never worried about the problem of saving memory, and if you, for example, drew on the Web server configuration 16mb, I think many of you would say thank you! For example, I tried to work nanoweb 2.2.9, this web server is built on php, and at low loads, in principle, I believe, should work on 16mb. In fact, these miniature vps very interesting, because there must think
I recommend you develop, the distribution system to the presence of a webserver and works on the 16mb, I think it will be interesting to many of the finished product.
also want to say that it is interesting vps, which will be a small price to 1 $, even with shared IP. is very amusing to raise the level of development of the mind. And if possible on such a configuration, make a blog, or what some sites, or service DNS. I think if the price to 1 $, it will be all very interesting. Also highly recommended, and will not write until a support, set the configuration of 16mb, the control panel to start, stop, restart, reinstall, and for precisely this configuration, provide a few preliminary settings: a Web server, DNS server, or other areas of application, what else can be.
to Tocici: A good configuration for a 16/32MB vps would be dropbear as ssh server, dash as the default shell and no other service started by default, like cron or klogd or other log.
Here my memory usage:
total used free
16384 2980 13404
Does ruby use more memory then python? I can run python on the vps above, but ruby gives malloc errors when I try to require ‘rubygems’
Thanks everyone for the support and suggestions. To update; many of the above ideas have been suggested internally for a few months, some have been implemented already, while others were already on the implementation schedule; in the final steps of testing/staging now. We’ll be pushing some exciting production-ready updates out in the next few days.
This was kinda lame. Couldn’t execute ANY command. I’ll pass and stick with my slightly more expensive VPS’s.