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Thanks, can confirm all works as expected now.
Decided to use Cursor to modify the default WHMCS "six" theme. Just testing on a local dev install of WHMCS.
Getting around to working on the storage stuff.
10TB HDD box, 8vCPU and 16GB RAM. 5Gbps port cap. Not bad.
No guarantee we'll actually offer any storage servers long term but I've got a big box online. Let me see what I have leftover after doing things like setting up some crypto nodes (We run https://xmr.gd - But I want to run some LTC, ZCash and other nodes too).
Hi! I have some feedback.
Snowflake
First of all, the configuration for "Snowflake relay" isn't really a relay, but a client. Snowflake relay doesn't need Tor to be installed on the server at all.
It even says:
In torrc config generated by your site.
Snowflake bridge doesn't really work like a relay, the terminology can be quite confusing but the binary you should run to help people connect is called snowflake proxy. It's because it proxies the traffic between snowflake client (the one that wants to connect to Tor) and a snowflake server (also called a relay in proxy docs, ran by Tor project themselves, the default one is snowflake.torproject.net ). You can read more on the Tor forum to see more knowledgeable people than me discussing it.
In snowflake, there's also another component called broker. It helps your snowflake proxy find clients that need a connection. It's also hosted by Tor project themselves at snowflake-broker.torproject.net .
Guard Relay
Next, selecting 2nd option. Why is it named "Guard Relay"? Maybe a more suiting name would be Middle/Guard Relay (more commonly seen even in Tor docs). You can't guarantee the relay will be a guard because it's determined by Tor Directory Authorities:
Now, the
DirCache 1option does not seem to be necessary. I couldn't find much configs where it was specified explicitly as 1 is the default value. Setting it to 0 makes your relay not eligible for Guard (forcing Middle-only) but I'm not sure how it got to your config tool. The comment above (# Enable directory caching for better performance) also doesn't really explain what it is doing.That's not really important compared to
IPv6Addressoption generated which does not even exist. Not sure which AI hallucinated it but I had to check myself to be sure:If you want to specify IPv6 address to use, you need to do that in
ORPortdirective like:Lastly (for this section), when specifying accounting, it auto-generated line:
It assumes traffic cap resets at the start of each month. That may not always be true, it would be nice to see some additional info (or field) to change it to other day/hour in the month.
Exit Relay
Things from Guard relay section apply here as well. Additionally, I suggest adding some slider/choice of Exit policy. The current one looks a bit more restrictive than Reduced Exit Policy recommended by the Tor docs. At the same time, it doesn't really explain why certain ports are blocked and others unblocked. I would imagine some users would appreciate more fine grained control from the most restrictive (only accept 53, 80, 443) to least restrictive (the default Reduced Exit Policy, doesn't really make sense to run exits entirely unrestricted imo).
Bridge
What kind of bridge is it supposed to be?
Assuming it's obfs4, it lacks the
ServerTransportPlugin obfs4 exec /usr/bin/obfs4proxyoption (and part about installing obfs4proxy binary itself). You can read the official Tor docs to see how a config for obfs4 bridge should look like.Additionally, it would be nice to see WebTunnel bridge setup too. It is not as easy to set up as snowflake or obfs4 (requires obtaining TLS certificate and exposing it on port 443), but it's been reported it works much better as some countries started blocking "unknown" traffic which obfs4 mimics.
Other notes
The link to Nyx source (
https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/core/nyx) is invalid. Not sure if it is still (or ever was on Torproject's gitlab), but the current one lives on Github: https://github.com/torproject/nyx/tree/master .It's interesting to see comments about updates in script source code
Some fields are explained, some aren't. It would be nice to add more explanations for all presented options (and other options they may wanna use). It would make the tool more useful.
Overall, pretty disappointed. I hope it's an alpha-tool that's not meant for public. Currently some options seem to be hallucinated, outdated or incorrectly described. Not something I would expect from a host who charges big money in the name of free speech and privacy.
Vibe coding. Will re-review it. Thanks for the feedback!
Will your coming DNS product be for domains not registered with Incognet as well?
Possibly, BUT DNS is a hard sell. We're not doing anything that you can't get for free already from dns.he.net, Cloudflare, etc.
Originally we didn't even offer DNS hosting because we just assumed those buying domains already had a favorite DNS provider. Turns out it was the opposite, many expected the domain to come with DNS hosting.
First we just offered free "DNS Only" DirectAdmin accounts.
Then we began to offer what we're doing now.
New DNS cluster is in production already, just need to switch over to it. It's just a 4 POP anycast setup + 2 unicast NS in NYC from two different DDoS protection networks. Should be resilient enough of a setup but not going to even try to pretend it's better than anything else other than our first two DNS setups. It's just 4x BuyVM POPs using our ASN / IPs + Royale Hosting as a 2nd provider and Sucura for a 3rd. Unlikely that it'd all be down at once, at least. My main concern with it was just getting things off our own network (one NS would be fine, but not all) and spreading things out for redundancy.
Simply not being Cloudflare or Hurricane is what makes it attractive. This isn't about tech specs. It's about having choice and the option to get away from the herd.
Any idea which location the storage plans (if made available) will be in?
No real plan for them yet.
I like to keep hardware as consistent as possible between locations and so far only have big storage in Bulgaria and in Kansas City. Actually have had a storage server racked in KC for a few months now, just haven't spun it up... But it was never meant to be used for public service.
Fair enough.
In case it affects your decision regarding whether to do the storage plans or not, I would be happy with an HDD of even just 100 GB (with SSD for the operating system ofc), as long as the price was reasonable.
I know storage is usually more, but if 1+ TB feels gratuitous, I'm sure there's a market for plans like that at a comparable price to the existing NVMe VPSes.
Edit:
I do regret cancelling my 2024 BF server with 30 GB SSD + 300 GB HDD in Liberty Lake. But I had wanted to change my IPv4 address and didn't think that was possible. Oh well.
Still a hidden product, at least until I get some more documentation written and KB updated... but if anyone was interested in the DNS product:
https://portal.incognet.io/store/dns-hosting/incogdns-premium
Use code:
HCZN8M7XT4for 100% off the first year. Will renew at $5/yr.As I said before: Is it better than Cloudflare? dns.he.net? Your domain registrar's included DNS? Probably not... honestly.
But it's there if you'd like to use it.
Is there any possibility to create custom nameservers? (vanity)
Kool
Limited to one domain only?
Not yet. Could probably do this manually, however.
For the time being, yes. It's more of an add-on to our existing domain service than anything, but wanted to give the option for one-off use for domains not registered through us.
Would you consider making a toggle switch or something to limit resolving to a particular geo region? Like US only or EU only?
Also, any chance to have auto failover?
I see the client portal makeover is finally live
I wonder what's the use case?
Data control.
Not sure if it helps much given popularity of both VPNs and Tor network.
Why not use geoblocking at the web server, what benefit do you expect from offloading it to DNS?
We are talking about different things I think. I am talking about having my dns records stored in a particular geo region.
I still have these VMs, if anyone is interested. A few people contacted me, but ultimately there were no takers. I only ask for those interested to make me an offer which they consider to be fair.
I'll buy them back from you and just give you a prorated refund for whatever unusued time there is. 🤷
Less legacy VMs to eventually migrate to new hardware.
@MannDude Great, I have created a ticket about this.
On mobile, read your ticket but will respond when back to my desk. Give me a few hours and I'll get you sorted out.
Love it. Have you considered any sort of bundling offers? For example, easyDNS includes basic mail hosting in their DNS products. (They require DNS hosting and mail hosting to be tied to the same domain name.)
Any plans for VPS restock in the Netherlands?
@MannDude
Hi there, I recently bought a plan from Incognet. I had one ticket initially asking a question about domain registration that was answered quite promptly but I had another billing question that has not been answered since Dec 7 so getting close to a month. The first time I followed up on the ticket which probably put it back to the end of the queue but I created another ticket with priority high and also no reply for a week. Ticket number 1222J30C0
I've been very happy with the services themselves but I would not use this for any production sensitive stuff given this experience - I did see the reviews about slow ticket response time on Trustpilot and here and was hoping things had changed given some of the things MannDude was saying here but that looks not to be the case.
It is frustrating to have to sign up for a LowEndTalk account to communicate with the provider, or in some cases I guess people who gave poor reviews on TrustPilot - there is no other way to contact other than the ticketing system.
This is a really unique service as I love the fact that it's privacy centric and the service itself seems to great. I understand that it's probably hard being a one man shop and running things. Really hoping that Incognet can solve these ticketing problems in the future so I can give a full recommendation!
Sorry, I had read the original ticket before but hadn't yet responded. Sales related requests always get lower priority compared to actual support or service impacting items. (Though most service impacting items that are wide will wake me up via a slew of alerts and get immediate action 99% of the time).
I'll answer your ticket, which is an inquiry about a custom VPS plan shortly. We don't generally do custom stuff but since you've had to wait a long time I'll accommodate you.
We're not a one man show but it is mostly me + part time help, but many things still require my review / response. After the New Year we'll be caught back up again.
Haven't given it much of a thought. Still have MyPrivateInbox on the backburner but seeing how unrealistic of expectations many of the mail customers are, based on reading LET threads/discussion in regards to NameCrane and MXRoute, I'm not sure I want to dive into that market. "Why does it take 20 seconds for it to arrive to GMail? This is unacceptable!" "Why does it only include XXGB of storage? I can get 500GB of Stroage for $2/yr from the other guys!!!" "what do you mean I can't send unsolicited prescription pill telegram links to 5,000 scraped email addresses at once? I thought you guys were 'pro free speech'!!!?" Etc.
Still, maybe. But based on the conversations regarding the other two guys it seems like a support heavy service with low reward.
Service was ready to launch last Black Friday but the winds shifted and was bad timing to try to launch. Additionally, we knew at the time we'd be migrating datacenters in the Netherlands (where the service was planned to launch) and thought it'd be in poor taste to launch the service knowing that in a few months we'd be disrupting it for migration. We kept VPS plans out of stock for several months in that POP for that same reason, just to not disrupt any new customers. Turns out it was the right call since the DC migration was an awful experience and the biggest clusterfuck ever and the service disruption lasted much much longer than we had ever anticipated or planned for.
Yes! I think we're still on track for new hardware in the coming week(s). I'll have to check back in on that. Then EU will be stocked up pretty well.