Any tips? Iβm looking for a VPS to run a Gemini server. What kind of software requirements should a VPS have to make sure itβll actually work? And what are the usual keywords I should keep an eye out for? Some concrete suggestions for a VPS provider? Thanks a lot!
Aug 27 Β· 7 weeks ago Β· π jsreed5, mimas2AC
22 Comments β
π pista Β· Aug 27 at 20:18:
As I suggested to stack in another thread: LowEndBox aggregates budget VPS sales.
You can find a lot of hosts down to $3-$5 per month. Geminiβs system requirements are so low you could serve off a 486 CPU as long as it can keep up with the cryptography.
Realistically nothing that even is a VPS can ever be that slow. If all you are doing is serving gemini files *any* VPS is fast enough.
If you want to build bigger projects and interact with databases using gemini as an interface, you will of course need whatever power and RAM you will need for those.
For example, if you want to use gemini to interface with a self hosted LLM so you can do AI queries over gemini, then you need a host able to CPU and RAM to run an LLM.
A KVM server that lets you install any OS (Linux, BSD, etc) will give you the most freedom to play and experiment.
π stack Β· Aug 27 at 21:26:
β bbs.geminispace.org/u/stack/31705
π flipperzero Β· Aug 27 at 23:16:
check out contabo. they're based in germany, but host across the world. they have VPS as low as 6 bucks a month for 400gb storage, 2-4vcpu clocked at 2-3ghz, 4-8gb RAM usage, 2tb unrestricted UL and DL which reloads every month. it's what my pubnix hashnix.club is on for the way way low
π stack Β· Aug 27 at 23:39:
also german, netcup.com for really inexpensive low-end vps
I think i will try them
π pista Β· Aug 28 at 02:11:
If that is 400GB SSD storage thatβs an insane deal. That sounds like something people would be buying in Bitcoin to use as a seedbox.
π mimas2AC Β· Aug 28 at 07:56:
Thanks! Right now, I'm mostly thinking about whether I should get a VPS and use my own domain. My worry is, I only have beginner server admin skillsβdo you think that's enough? When it comes to the Gemini server, I found what I need, but what about everything else? Do I need to set up the Linux server more to get things working smoothly and secure?
π pista Β· Aug 28 at 11:03:
You would follow basic good security advice: any guide that covers setting up a firewall, moving the SSH port number, and setting up fail2ban to protect against brute force attacks will get you most of the way there.
There isnβt anything special beyond that required for gemini.
π jsreed5 Β· Aug 28 at 12:18:
I host my capsules using AWS EC2. Compared to other VPS services, AWS has a very high learning curve, but I was already familiar with it because of my job. The nice thing about AWS is that if you use a free-tier EC2 micro instance and a free DDNS provider plan, you can host your capsule for actually zero dollars a month.
π¦ bluesman Β· Aug 28 at 13:12:
@jsreed5 Same story here but with Google instead of Amazon (and the fact that I'm somehow paying $0.50 a month). It's hard to tell which of those two is the more unprincipled choice in these parts.
EDIT TO ADD: Apparently it's Google.
I'm serving mine off OVH. It's quite good as long as it is not literally burning down.
π stack Β· Aug 28 at 15:03:
netcup demanded ID verification after I gave them all my info (using a device with a camera). **** that.
π stack Β· Aug 28 at 15:18:
Trying contabo, but their lowest-end system is Euro 7.02/mo, with 3 cores 8GB/75GB. US region E. 1.67 .
Maybe the golden age of VPS is over?
Given my reluctance to the whole thing (I would love to be a good tenant on someone else's server), I may have to just give up and just have spellbinding be down half the time.
π pista Β· Aug 28 at 15:25:
It's Germany. What do you expect?
π stack Β· Aug 28 at 15:38:
Oracle actually sounds like good now, after dicking around with crazy no-name nonsense. But when I tried to open an account, I got:
This site is experiencing technical difficulty. We are aware of the issue and are working as quickly as possible to correct the issue. ...
Not very promising.
π norayr Β· Aug 28 at 20:30:
i am a big fan of hosting at home. the only thing you need that i don't know if you can get, is a real ip.
if your isp is able to get you static real ip, then use whatever you have around: old computer, or a cheap 4gb pine64 risc-v board.
then you don't have to pay monthly fee to the hosting provider.
you already pay for the internet, some would require negligeble increase it price.
when bbs was very new, someone wrote about $80 10tb hdds on ebay. you can have lots of space for personal drive. i would not even use next cloud etc, i would just mount a remote nfs share via wireguard ip.
the disadvantage is: if you have power outage your server won't work. that's fine.
if your ips won't provide you a real static ip: use yggdrasil. and perhaps normal mainstream internet dns.
that would give an incentive to those who don't have yggdrasil to use it.
π flipperzero Β· Aug 28 at 22:19:
@stack are you sure you're looking right? 'cause when I went to contabo's front page right now, I found this after selecting US region and keeping euro currency in place.
for futher info, when I clicked the lowest on the sales portal, this upsell page lists that lowest as being 4 euro.
π flipperzero Β· Aug 28 at 22:22:
@eko @mimas2AC if you can find a good domain maybe like at ddns or namecheap that's affordable for you, go for it, it's very easy to set up. NGL to y'all - when I started hashnix, i was a COMPLETE novice!! I didn't know WTF I was doing! Still trying to figure my way through ehehe. So far, I'm doing pretty okay, hmm? Trust yourself, study up, and navigate carefully and safely, keep on your toes with all this and learn from everything you run into keeping notes on all this. Ya got this!
π norayr Β· Aug 28 at 23:24:
aaand here is a muc about home hosting: xmpp:hbsc@muc.lurk.org?join
π stack Β· Aug 29 at 00:19:
That link shows 7.95 for me, +2.80 us east.
I'm done, signed up for AWS
It is free for a year an under $2.oo after for 2 cores 1gb ram and 20gb drive
Or something like it. I could spin up a couple more arm instances for free but eh lazy
π jsreed5 Β· Aug 29 at 00:58:
@stack If you're ever curious, I can share some information on how my services are set up in AWS. It's not the most efficient, and I'm sure I could do it for cheaper, but it works for me.
π norayr Β· Aug 29 at 01:30:
i think for gemini and smolnet it suits more to serve from
even very weak one.
π stack Β· Aug 29 at 03:54:
@jsreed5, yes, i would love to see whatever you are comfortable sharing. Thanks.
So far I got an instance up and can ssh and compule stuff. Trying to figure out which server is small, minimalist and has cgi.
If you want more privacy email me at ctrl-c.club
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