this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2023
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29
Oracle Free Tier VPS Self Hosting Ideas (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 years ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
26 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Hello SelfHosted!

I have recently setup my own free tier oracle VPS and am looking to get my feet wet with some simple services that I can host on there to get started.

I should mention I have successfully setup SSH with the private key so that part is good to go.

Any ideas are welcome!

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (4 children)

I'd like to really really caution people about Oracle Free Tier.

They've been known to suddenly ban free tier users, with no explanation or recourse. Happened to me and many others. I had a lemmy instance on it, hadn't started my backup plan yet cause I was dumb, and Oracle just emailed me that my "trial was over", server immediately shut down, and support stonewalled me.

Couldn't even get my data. So if you want to try it, make sure you have a backup plan and a plan on what to do if they pull the plug.

Some have been using it for years, though. Just be ready.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Yeah. Don't use any Oracle product, ever, for any reason, for any length of time at all. They are absolute garbage.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

It did seem hugely generous in terms of what you get.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago (3 children)

I've been lucky to have no issues with them for over a year, but one thing I've noticed is everyone who has had issues has been running a VPN of some sort; were you maybe?

It'd be interesting to see if that's whatever keeps causing the ban triggers.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

Mine is about a year old as well. I'm also curious to know what triggers these bans. I also noticed people bringing up Minecraft servers on r/oraclecloud. I personally have a Valheim server running for months but I haven't had any issues.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

Nope. Literally just Lemmy, signed up and administered while not behind a VPN

[–] Helio 1 points 2 years ago

I'd like to know too. I've been using the free tier for years now and hosted a bunch of different stuff on it (no VPN though) and never had any problems

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

Thanks for the warning. Oracles got the worst reputation but I might have given em a shot if it cost me nothing.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

The plan isn't to have any mission critical services on here. Mostly just to have a sandbox environment to test things out before I actually pull the plug on a reliable VPS service.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Oracle a company to actively avoid doing business with or realying on in any way.

Spend the $5 for a commodity VPS from literally any standard vendor. I suggest Vultr.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Best cheapest vps I’ve found is nerdrack

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

You mean Racknerd correct?

They are great, I have a couple of servers with them (including the one that's hosting my lemmy instance)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

I snagged a couple of VPS from Racknerd in the Black Friday sale. One of them became a home for my Mastodon instance and now the other gets my new Lemmy instance. No issues to speak of with them yet, so I'm perfectly happy with 'em.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Searx NG worked well for me. I currently have Matrix running on another, set up with the ansible docker repo. Actually trying to set lemmy up on another.

I converted to pay as you go so they would open up the smtp ports so I could use postmoogle with Matrix but i still only use the always free shapes and still havent incurred a charge in roughly 6 months

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Sounds cool! Could you link to matrix? Looking up matrix as you can imagine provides a lot of movie related results lol

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

https://matrix.org/ is what you're after.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

That's a great idea, I have my SearXNG instance running on my local box but moving that and some other low computer/storage stuff there would at least make my home network more secure.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago

I use my Oracle free tier for Tor Snowflake. It was a service I didn’t really want to run myself and not something I ever need to connect to so if Oracle suddenly shuts down my server for any reason then it’s no loss for me. In the meantime it provides value for people in countries with harsh internet censorship, so I’m happy to just set it up and leave it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Just FYI Oracle has language that reserves the right to shut down free tier machines that they deem “idle”.

https://docs.oracle.com/en-us/iaas/Content/FreeTier/freetier_topic-Always_Free_Resources.htm

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

You can prevent this by adding a credit card to your account. It “upgrades” your status, and then as long as you stay in the free tier allocations you won’t be charged.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Man I would be so nervous to trust Oracle with my credit card though.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Do https://privacy.com then! Can set it to like $10 limit in case they charge a tiny bit to test the card and you'll never spend more.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

They do a $100 test charge IIRC when upgrading to their PAYG (pay-as-you-go) tier. They also don't like virtual/prepaid CCs.

[–] abraham_linksys 1 points 2 years ago

Nextcloud is FOSS MS Office online + video/text chat + extensions for all kinds of cool stuff. They have a helm chart too if you want to get into kubernetes, but a single VM image is also available and WAY easier.

Pihole. DNS server that filters out domains of ad companies. Set your router to use it as it's primary DNS and your while wifi network is adblocked by default. I love explaining this to people who visit my home 😎

Hmm... I'm sure I can think of other cool stuff for a home network....

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