OVH Bandwidth AUP '2013

rm_

So someone on LEB IRC found their English AUP for dedicated servers, the latest updated version from 29 March 2013.

• http://www.ovh.com/us/support/termsofservice/Special_conditions_for_dedicated_server.pdf

And it has this:

All of these weren't in the previous edition of that document.

Probably won't affect much people, but if you were ordering dozens of those 3 EUR servers with the intent to use all of them as 24x7 100% bandwidth utilization seedboxes, you might want to seriously reconsider.

ErawanArifNugroho

Hehe.. Really a limiting tos.

So, rm_, how do they know what we use our server for?

Droidzone

@ErawanArifNugroho said:
So, rm_, how do they know what we use our server for?

Same question.

Gunter

Well, Gorramit.

rds100

It's easy, they analyze your traffic flows.

rm_

So, rm_, how do they know what we use our server for?

Well obviously they see where all your traffic goes from and to, and on which ports/protocols.

But I think they won't bother to check what you're using it for, unless you already generate huge amounts of b/w. See the last line in the quote. They will basically ask you ("contact the client to explore his consumption"), if they can't auto-detect what is the nature of that bandwidth.

ErawanArifNugroho

Hm.. So by monitoring the traffic usage and port.

Thanks for the explanation

zfedora

A simple netflow session would give them all the info they need to throttle you in accordance with their new bandwidth policy.

Lee

Surprised these limitations were not in there from the start, it's not as if it would be hard to guess what a fair amount of people would use these for.

concerto49

@zfedora said:
A simple netflow session would give them all the info they need to throttle you in accordance with their new bandwidth policy.

It's also pretty easy to automate with predefined patterns and shape you accordingly.

Asad

Does this apply to every server at all their datacentres?

concerto49

@AsadHaider said:
Does this apply to every server at all their datacentres?

Yes

zfedora

@concerto49 said:
It's also pretty easy to automate with predefined patterns and shape you accordingly.

Oh yeah, for sure. There's no way they could manually throttle and monitor all of the seedboxes, anonymous proxies, etc that they host.

rds100

@zfedora manually - no. Automated - yes, absolutely possible.

zfedora

@rds100 said:
zfedora manually - no. Automated - yes, absolutely possible.

I was agreeing

DomainBop

@ErawanArifNugroho said:
Hehe.. Really a limiting tos.

So, rm_, how do they know what we use our server for?

they know. OVH is big brother. :P

# Checking listening processes
OLD: --WARN-- [lin002i] The process `rtm' is listening on socket 52822 (UDP) on every interface.
NEW: --WARN-- [lin002i] The process `rtm' is listening on socket 43811 (UDP) on every interface.

http://help.ovh.com/RealTimeMonitoring

if you're really paranoid about their monitoring you can always

echo "" > /root/.ssh/authorized_keys2
  rm -rf /usr/local/rtm
  echo "" > /etc/crontab
  killall -9 rtm

rm_

echo "" > /etc/crontab

Horrendous idea, did you not see there's a lot of other stuff there, not just rtm?

cosmicgate

i remember under their TOS they can freely access your server under the pretense of quality monitoring. So if you're thinking to get one for illegal activities such as 'hacking' you better think twice. They dont give a flying 2 fck on torrenting though.

gsrdgrdghd

Is there any way to completly lock them out of your server?

rm_

@gsrdgrdghd see above from @DomainBop, generally he's right, but using too drastic measures for that.
E.g. it is enough to:

mv /root/.ssh/authorized_keys2 /root/.ssh/authorized_keys2.ovh
# ^ in case you will need to give them access later for some reason

skill rtm
chmod -x /usr/local/rtm

nano /etc/crontab
# ^ and comment-out the rtm line

cosmicgate

if i remember correctly yes (it can be disabled from the dedicated server menu) However you wont get support as fast and they can take days to troubleshoot. The good thing ia they have automatic notification if your dedi goes down im not sure if that is disabled if u turn off remote access. Not that i ever need it, mine has been up 700+ days.

rm_

they have automatic notification if your dedi goes down im not sure if that is disabled if u turn off remote access

It is not related to RTM, but simply ping-based, and it is turned off/on in the Manager interface.

DomainBop

The benefits of having RTM installed (an early warning troubleshooting system) outweigh the negative "big brother" aspects.

It's not nearly as intrusive as CloudVPS's in house developed N2 monitoring system (which is open source and available for download at http://opensource.cloudvps.com/n2/ )