New Free VPS Location! Alexhost, Chisinau, Moldova via FOSSVPS!

epoch314 · August 2025

Just wanted to let folks know I got the VPS. It worked without a hitch. If you are uneasy with NAT, just do a bit of googling and find out how to forward ports and set it up with a domain. Server is incredibly responsive and was easy to set up. I use MobaXterm for anyone interested. Thanks Oles!

Not_Oles · August 2025

Our FOSSVPS.org website has been updated so that it now highlights our wonderful sponsors, node locations, VPS specs, and inventory.

FOSSVPS has 26 VPSes assigned and 8 VPSes available for assignment!

Thanks everyone!

BreakaWD · August 2025

Hey guys,
Here are some updates to my bind9 recursive DNS server setup. The server has really good response times, DNS queries are fast and smooth.

DNS leak test
My IP: 176.xxx.xxx.xxx
start test
Dns leak test generates 10 nslookup requests to the bash.ws DNS server.
You use 1 DNS server:
176.xxx.xxx.xxx     Moldova AS200019 AlexHost SRL

When the server functions as a recursive DNS resolver, the DNS leak test results will only display the server's IP address, rather than showing upstream resolvers such as Cloudflare, Google, etc.
I'll work on DoH/DoT testing as well.

Starnberg · August 2025

@Not_Oles said: @Starnberg has been added on the node. Welcome @Starnberg!

Login info sent by PM!

Thanks @Not_Oles! I've been able to successfully log in, and did take a first look around, including taking an "outside" look at my VM. Impressive resources on the host. You shared the specs, but to really appreciate them, it helps me to compare, and really grasp based on more familiar atop output.

Won't be able to do as much this week as last week, but will slowly but steadily move on. To have something to show for, I am currently concentrating on how to present a subset of the data the VM produces in a simpler way, for now avoiding the need for trafficserver or another reverse proxy.

Still, I'll continue in the background to plan how to troubleshoot the trafficserver issue, and will try a few config changes to see whether I can determine what aspect of traffiserver it is that, while not leading to any relevant CPU usage as seen from inside the VM, will lead to one or even two cores on the host node showing as busy.

During the VPS' shutdown last week due to the CPU anomalies, I had taken the NTP server out of the Pool rotation, and kept it out in anticipation of the planned host reboot, and through the host's and the VPSes' subsequent downtime. I have now re-added it to the rotation, so tomorrow should then be the first full day for which the traffic statistics collected will be aggregated to get an estimate as to traffic consumption to be expected going forward (as discussed last week).

BasToTheMax · August 2025

@BreakaWD said: bind9 recursive DNS server

Is your DNS server public or is there an IP whitelist?

BreakaWD · August 2025

@BasToTheMax said:

@BreakaWD said: bind9 recursive DNS server

Is your DNS server public or is there an IP whitelist?

It only listens on the wireguard interface at 172.29.0.0/24 for testing purposes. All queries are secured by the tunnel. It's never a good security measure to run a public resolver on UDP/53.

I'm considering running DoH/DoT on TCP/853 and TCP/443 at 0.0.0.0/0 using the existing BIND9 127.0.0.1:53 as upstream, if it is allowed by ToS.

Not_Oles · August 2025

@vuanhson said:

@Not_Oles said:

@Starnberg said: is there a way I could get some sort of direct view myself at the host's live performance data?

As you certainly know, there are multiple ways to make the host's live performance data available.

What way would you guys prefer?

Using beszel and add multiple hosts in one view, create read only users for who want to see, it help you save time instead of create bunch of users on multiple hosts, and beszel is opensource, easy to setup too

or just install node exporter, who want to monitor it will setup prometheus and grafana theirself

I've had tons of fun making my first PHP project, a simple, basic PHP login page and a page to export the output of top!

This on the test VPS at the @fmxm LA node. It seems to work! But there might be some security issues, so the firewall locks it down to one IP.

Soon I hope to try the same in Javascript, which will be my first Javascript project.

Probably not too many people would be interested in the code for these baby projects, but I want to set up a self-hosted version control web interface, maybe cgit.

Thanks to @fmxm, @alexhost, and @dan_onlyservers for their lovely server donations!

Want a free VPS? Please check the available inventory at FOSSVPS.org!

forghani · August 2025

I'm making progress! Currently it notifies only new cerificates to telegram with help of notify and anew. I just made a simple one liner for that. It works awesome!

gungnir -r Assets.txt -f  | anew output.txt | notify

To clarify Assets.txt , it contains apex domains i want to monitor , for exmaple if i want to monitor all certificates that are going to be issued for onlyservers.com i put that in Assets.txt

Not_Oles · August 2025

FOSSVPS still has 8 free VPSes available in

Chisinau (Thanks Alexhost! )

5 x dedicated IPv4, 4 vCore. 4 GB RAM, 100 GB hardware RAID disk

and in

London (Thanks OnlyServers! )

3 x NAT IPv4, 2 vCore, 4 GB RAM, 50 GB SSD

zejjnt · August 2025

I would very much be interested in this.

ntpd (ntpsec), nginx and the likes (only available for a whitelisted range of client addresses), wireguard (client), networking tools such as mtr and some status page like Uptime Kuma. The primary usage would be as a NTP server and a jumpbox but also for monitoring my other nodes and troubleshooting/examining networking related issues.
I try to be active in this community, as well as a variety of others. I run NTP servers and Tor bridges (not planning to do that on one of these servers, but I consider it to be something related to me as an individual).
Does not matter actually, I don't have any machines in either country. UK would be preferred if I have to pick one.
If NAT has no ability to port forward I would like a dedicated IP.
ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAILvMhTybA3tDKPe9ScDQFNkT+IjVHQjIhgu1xZTivuji

Not_Oles · August 2025

@zejjint

Hello! Nice to meet you!

FOSSVPS still has some dedicated IPv4 VPSes in Moldiva, so I will assign one of those to you.

Might take a little while, so please be patient.

I will PM you login info and post here again when your VPS is assigned.

Glad to have you aboard!

Tom

spiderhr · August 2025

For run Docker and Discours, NocoDB, Grist, many testing selfhosted app and my catalog writen in PHP/MariaDB comicbook in Croatia
I don't know. I love testing software.
Moldova
Dedicated
ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAIM9hzxHC9yocTg+Mf9ni84u0yvj/rk5M2vy6GMtNf5Pt

Not_Oles · August 2025

Hi again @spiderhr!

Welcome! You are in, and I am very glad to have you with us!

I will set up a Moldova VPS for you. I will PM login information. I will post here again after the PM is sent.

It might take a while, so please be patient.

Thanks for your request!

Always best wishes!

Tom

FrankCastle · August 2025

I think I will probably start out with installing Debian 13 to kick the tires on that a little bit before I upgrade any of my debian12 instances. Then I'll probably slap the latest version of OpenBSD on it and use it as a DNSCrypt server.
I haven't been very active on the forums lately (irl has been pretty crazy) but I think most would consider me a positive and friendly contributor, I hope so anyway.
If I'm not mistaken there are available slots in Chisinau so I'll give that a shot.
I picked Chisinau because it has dedicated IPs but if that wasn't available I could make due in any location and with just NAT, I'm pretty flexible.
ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAIC6ReE2M3njv2nRm04hig3h6VesMtfDpvIq9ZXRFPZd/

Thanks to @alexhost for providing the Chisinau hardware, thanks to @Not_Oles for donating so much of his time to run this project and to all of the others involved in this awesome endeavor.

spiderhr · August 2025

@Not_Oles said: I will set up a Moldova VPS for you. I will PM login information. I will post here again after the PM is sent.

It might take a while, so please be patient.

Thank you very much.

Not_Oles · August 2025

@zejjnt

PM sent. Please post here to let us know if you get in. Please also post about your progress.

The better the conversation here, the more likely that our kind Provider donors will renew their Nodes. Also the more likely that additional, new Providers will donate new Nodes. Thanks to Alexhost for donating the Node on which your VPS is running.

Welcome again! Best wishes!

Not_Oles · August 2025

@FrankCastle

Hi! Nice to see you! Of course you are in.

The Moldova VPSes were pre-made with libvirt and virt-install and Ubuntu 24.04 LTS.

On the pre-made VPSes, the qemu VNC is not enabled.

However, I did save a slot or maybe two just in case someone really wanted another OS besides Ubuntu.

Do you want to go ahead with Ubuntu or go with Debian?

Alternatively, is there an OpenBSD qcow2 image that you like?

Or maybe you have a better idea?

Best!

Tom

FrankCastle · August 2025

@Not_Oles said:
@FrankCastle

Hi! Nice to see you! Of course you are in.

The Moldova VPSes were pre-made with libvirt and virt-install and Ubuntu 24.04 LTS.

On the pre-made VPSes, the qemu VNC is not enabled.

However, I did save a slot or maybe two just in case someone really wanted another OS besides Ubuntu.

Do you want to go ahead with Ubuntu or go with Debian?

Alternatively, is there an OpenBSD qcow2 image that you like?

Or maybe you have a better idea?

Best!

Tom

If there is still a slot where vnc is enabled that would be ideal, thank you very much. You are the best! You could virt-install -c ipxe.iso [ file from https://boot.ipxe.org/ipxe.iso ] and that would allow me to install whatever without having to bug you each time I want to reinstall something new. Even without virt-viewer we should be able to use ssh port forwarding to get console access. That's the easiest solution that comes to mind anyway. If there is another location/setup where this would be easier that's fine as well. I don't want to complicate matters too much!

Not_Oles · August 2025

@spiderhr

PM sent! Hope you really enjoy your VPS!

Anything I can do to help, just let me know!

Best!

Tom

Thanks to @alexhost for the nice Moldova Node that provides @spiderhr's VPS!

Not_Oles · August 2025

@FrankCastle said: If there is still a slot where vnc is enabled

Just to be clear, there are no slots where VNC is enabled. There are a couple of slots where nothing was pre-installed, anticipating we might get lucky about requests.

@FrankCastle said: virt-install -c ipxe.iso [ file from https://boot.ipxe.org/ipxe.iso ]

I haven't tried ipxe before. I'm sure it's fine. But I have to study up.

@FrankCastle said: without virt-viewer we should be able to use ssh port forwarding to get console access

Meaning that you can do without a graphical install?

Not_Oles · August 2025

As can be seen at FOSSVPS, only 6 VPSes remain available, 3 NATs in London and three dedicated IPv4 in Chisinau.

Any more Providers want to donate Nodes?

FrankCastle · August 2025

Just to be clear, there are no slots where VNC is enabled. There are a couple of slots where nothing was pre-installed, anticipating we might get lucky about requests.

So you are using --graphics none as part of your libvert-install command? Would it be possible to set it to vnc instead of none?

Meaning that you can do without a graphical install?

I am not doing a graphical install per se but I do need console access to setup disk encryption and everything else before the operating system boots. Thus the vnc parameter in the libvert-install above. If you are using bashvm to set everything up I'm pretty sure it has vnc/console support but I could be mistaken since I haven't personally used it.

It seems like I might be expecting more than what you have been providing thus far and I don't want to complicate things for you unless you are open to it. I can hit you up in DMs as to not clutter this thread.

Not_Oles · August 2025

@FrankCastle

@FrankCastle said: So you are using --graphics none as part of your libvert-install command?

Here is approximately the virt-install command which was used.

virt-install \
  --name testvmX \
  --ram 4096 \
  --vcpus 4 \
  --os-variant ubuntu24.04 \
  --disk path=/var/lib/libvirt/images/vmX.qcow2,format=qcow2 \
  --disk path=/var/lib/libvirt/images/vmX-seed.iso,device=cdrom \
  --network bridge=br0,model=virtio \
  --import \
  --graphics none \
  --console pty,target_type=serial \
  --noautoconsole

Would it be possible to set it to vnc instead of none?

Of course! But, as you know, there are additional items which follow from enabling VNC. And, as you know, alternatives, such as, for example, Spice. Maybe there might be some cool method where a graphical install is not required?

What's going on behind the scenes is that I have been happily using BashVM from @babywhale to make VPSes. BashVM calls virsh a lot. I thought, if I want to underrstand BashVM, probably it might be a good idea to try Libvirt directly.

The VPS creation sequence used on Ubuntu 24.04 might have been, approximately:

apt-get install qemu-kvm libvirt-daemon-system libvirt-clients bridge-utils virtinst cloud-image-utils cloud-init yamllint libguestfs-tools libosinfo-bin

wget https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/noble/current/noble-server-cloudimg-amd64.img

wget -q https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/noble/current/SHA256SUMS

ed 01-bridge.yaml

chmod 600 /etc/netplan/01-bridge.yaml

yamllint 01-bridge.yaml 

cat -vET 01-bridge.yaml 

netplan apply 

systemctl reboot

qemu-img create -f qcow2 -F qcow2 -b /var/lib/libvirt/images/noble-server-cloudimg-amd64.img /var/lib/libvirt/images/testvm1.qcow2 100G

cloud-localds --network-config=network-config testvm1-seed.iso user-data meta-data

chown libvirt-qemu:kvm /var/lib/libvirt/images/testvm1.qcow2

# Run the above virt-install command. Shut down the VPS. 

virsh snapshot-create-as --domain testvm1 --name fresh

# Enable Autostart, start the VPS. Serial console or ssh in.

Here are examples of meta-data, network-config, and user-data:

instance-id: testvmX
local-hostname: testvmX

network:
  version: 2
  ethernets:
    enp1s0:
      dhcp4: false
      dhcp6: false
      addresses:
        - $IPv4/XX
        - $IPv6/XX
      routes:
        - to: default
          via: $IPv4_gateway
          on-link: true
        - to: default
          via: $IPv6_gateway
          on-link: true
      nameservers:
        addresses:
          - 74.82.42.42
          - 1.1.1.1
          - 2001:470:20::2

hostname: testvmX
password: $Password
chpasswd: {expire: false}
ssh_pwauth: true
disable_root: false
ssh_authorized_keys: ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAIMEQHwt4GC/7QxwyA1RTJUMsXkGDJq/OwQVwg0TIHwK1

How can we improve this setup for everyone?

@FrankCastle How can this setup be modified so that you get way more and maybe all of what you want?

praburam · August 2025

@Not_Oles said:
As can be seen at FOSSVPS, only 6 VPSes remain available, 3 NATs in London and three dedicated IPv4 in Chisinau.

Any more Providers want to donate Nodes?

Well if you allow me to get a piece of VPS, i can able to run a search engine trends on different categories fields along with api access on so that many people will get benefits

Aphelios · August 2025

I’m heading to Egypt soon, and hope my VPS stays stable while I’m away.

Not_Oles · August 2025

@Aphelios I hope so too! Do you know how long you are going to be travelling?

Hopefully a gentle reminder:

@Not_Oles said:

No service level agreement.
Ephemeral. Could disappear at any time!

Not_Oles · August 2025

@praburam

Hi! Thanks for your request! Could you please give us more details on your project? Is your project open source? Can you please share a link to your source repository? Thanks again!

Aphelios · August 2025

@Not_Oles said:
@Aphelios I hope so too! Do you know how long you are going to be travelling?

Hopefully a gentle reminder:

@Not_Oles said:

No service level agreement.
Ephemeral. Could disappear at any time!

2 weeks. I'm excited

Not_Oles · August 2025

Sounds really great! I hope you have a good time!

FrankCastle · August 2025

@Not_Oles said:
How can we improve this setup for everyone?

@FrankCastle How can this setup be modified so that you get way more and maybe all of what you want?

Going off what you currently have this is what I would do.

virt-install \
  --name vmX \
  --ram 4096 \
  --vcpus 4 \
  --cpu=host \
  --os-variant unknown \
  --disk path=/var/lib/libvirt/images/vmX.qcow2,format=qcow2,bus=scsi,size=100 \
  --network bridge=br0,model=virtio \
  --graphics vnc \
  --boot hd,network,menu=on \
  --autostart \
  --noautoconsole

We would still need to solve getting me access to port 5900 (or 590X if you have used vnc graphics for something else but easy to figure out). This is pretty simple with a restricted shell account that can only do port forwarding (no actual permissions for full shell access). Then I can vnc in over a ssh tunnel (so it is encrypted) and install any operating system I want as many times as I want without ever having to bug you.

That said, if you are asking for suggestions to make this setup better providing users access to virtsh commands (so they can reboot instances on their own) would probably be a good idea. It would require some config changes but here's the docs for it: https://libvirt.org/uri.html

Easy peasy lemon squeezie.

Howdy, Stranger!

Categories

In this Discussion

New Free VPS Location! Alexhost, Chisinau, Moldova via FOSSVPS!

Comments

Howdy, Stranger!

Quick Links

Categories

In this Discussion

New Free VPS Location! Alexhost, Chisinau, Moldova via FOSSVPS!

Comments