# VPS friends of FreeBSD?



## freezr (May 4, 2022)

Dear Friends,

DigitalOcean is going to drop support for FreeBSD to... 



> _*empower our customers by providing them with simple, reliable cloud infrastructure*_



And I am not interested in supporting them anymore.

I am looking for others providers that have a reliable history in supporting FreeBSD, please any suggestion and advice is very welcomed!

Thanks!

D.


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## cracauer@ (May 4, 2022)

I'm happy with how my FreeBSD installations run in EC2.


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## Jose (May 4, 2022)

freezr said:


> Dear Friends,
> 
> DigitalOcean is going to drop support for FreeBSD to...
> 
> ...


Do you have a source for this? I will be closing my account today if this is correct. I'd been meaning to give Vultr a try anyway,


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## freezr (May 4, 2022)

cracauer@ said:


> I'm happy with how my FreeBSD installations run in EC2.



You mean Amazon?

I would prefer avoid Amazon, I am receiving a lot of recommendation about Vultr!


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## cracauer@ (May 4, 2022)

Yes, EC2 is part of Amazon Web Services (AWS).


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## Phishfry (May 4, 2022)

Jose said:


> Do you have a source for this?











						Question  | DigitalOcean
					

Technical tutorials, Q&A, events — This is an inclusive place where developers can find or lend support and discover new ways to contribute to the community.




					www.digitalocean.com
				




Looks like no FreeBSD 13 images.

Still you could say the same with Linode.
They have no official support but there is a page showing you how to install.








						Install FreeBSD on Linode
					

This guide will show you how to install FreeBSD, the free and open source operating system based on the Berkeley Software Software Distribution from the late 1970s.




					www.linode.com


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## covacat (May 4, 2022)

my.frantech.ca if you want cheap storage too (mostly sold out, prepare your scripts to order )
arubacloud.it


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## Phishfry (May 4, 2022)

Jose said:


> Do you have a source for this?


I don't see *this* anywhere on the DO site. Maybe it was emailed.


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## Jose (May 4, 2022)

Yeah, and no 12.3 images. I've opened a trouble ticket. Let's see what they say, if anything.


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## Phishfry (May 4, 2022)

That post looked too elaborate to be a prank.

Hows that saying go; If you have to call tech support than FreeBSD might not be the right choice for you.
I am tech support.

Lirsh is nothing more than repackaged Virsh.
Linodes whole deck of card rides on libvirtd. (My guess as Lirsh commands are just like Virsh).


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## SirDice (May 4, 2022)

freezr said:


> I am looking for others providers that have a reliable history in supporting FreeBSD, please any suggestion and advice is very welcomed!


There's a 9 page thread with suggestions: https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/freebsd-hosting-shared-vps-etc.21472/


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## Jose (May 4, 2022)

Yes, I am tech support. I need official confirmation that DO is no longer supporting Freebsd before I pull the trigger on an account cancellation. The reason I picked them originally was because they support Freebsd and had great community tutorials on the subject.


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## Factor (May 4, 2022)

For low cost I like Contabo. They have DC in America, Asia, and Europe


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## PMc (May 4, 2022)

freezr said:


> Dear Friends,
> 
> DigitalOcean is going to drop support for FreeBSD to...



Yeah, I read that today. I didn't understand it fully - but their webpage says that up to december, they had offered you to buy a licence from them that would give you the permission to use FreeBSD. 

Thats to the gods, back in 1995 when I started to use FreeBSD, they weren't there yet to give or not give me the permission. Computers didn't require driver's licences back then.


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## hbsd (May 4, 2022)

I just searched on DDG "Digitalocean doesn't support FreeBSD anymore" and I saw this topic on reddit: link. someone has introduced these sites:

arpnetworks
netactuate
ibm
cloudsigma
atlantic
klarasystems
gigenetcloud
host1
johncompanies
nqhost
transip

With fully respect to reddit haters


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## drhowarddrfine (May 4, 2022)

hbsd That list is further evidence as to why I say one should NEVER use reddit as a source for ANYTHING.


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## hbsd (May 4, 2022)

drhowarddrfine, Hello I was waiting for your message 
I don't use reddit as a trusted resource. just for stuff like this...
With respect.


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## sko (May 4, 2022)

I haven't received anything in that regard yet from digitalocean despite running several FreeBSD droplets... (and exclusively running FreeBSD droplets for several years now)

As stated in that reddit post, you can still run FreeBSD on those droplets just as before they officially supported it with their own (sometimes badly cluttered) images. Just slap a mfsBSD image on the disk, reboot and install. Same procedure as with any other VPS or bare-metal server where no BSD images are offered by the hoster.

OTOH - I already migrated some of my DO droplets to instances at netcup.eu about 6 months ago. Only had contact with their support for account verification, so can't really say anything about that part yet; but the instances are working fine and networking is fast.

For bare metal servers I've been a very happy customer of manitu.de for at least 10 years now and to everyone located in germany I can highly recommend them. They have exceptionally fast, friendly and competent support and even if they don't offer FreeBSD (or any BSD) images or rescue systems, they are always helpful and some of the support staff are also quite familiar with BSD and offer some ("inofficial") help. At my last inquiry about officially supporting FreeBSD they told me they'd like to do that, but they feel they don't have enough (Free)BSD competence throughout all of the support staff to meet their self-proclaimed standards of support quality. I highly appreciate that attitude and prefer to work with such people than just being told "we don't support that, go away". They never just raised their hands and said "you're on your own" like I've seen with other hosters if you tell them you run an unsupported OS, even if the problem is completely unrelated - e.g. a disk failure. (been there with hosteurope once - the host was down almost 10 days until they finally replaced the defective disk. The last disk failure at manitu was resolved in less than 15 minutes after I created the ticket)

So if this is true and they completely drop their FreeBSD support, I'm already set to leave them for good. Or I might revive and update my old mfsBSD/bsdinstall/'cloudinit-and-pull-from-git' toolchain, which back then I intended to make public at some point, but then they started to provide halfway decent images...




PMc said:


> Yeah, I read that today. I didn't understand it fully - but their webpage says that up to december, they had offered you to buy a licence from them that would give you the permission to use FreeBSD.


what kind of license should that be that "gives permission to run FreeBSD"? FreeBSD is released under the BSD license - you can run it anywhere you want...


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## PMc (May 4, 2022)

sko said:


> what kind of license should that be that "gives permission to run FreeBSD"? FreeBSD is released under the BSD license - you can run it anywhere you want...



Yeah, that's exactly the point, why should anybody bother?
But nowadays people do: they are greatly worried that they might loose their means of throwing away abundant money; so indeed I wouldn't be much surprized of them worrying when they are no longer able to pay for being allowed to use FreeBSD. It's Kali Yuga.

But, as this matter appears to be about hosting systems, indeed I was also in doubt if these "virtual" servers cound be used to run FreeBSD. So I decided to rent a physial machine instead, where to hosting company supports FreeBSD (only Rel. 11.2 - but then, even today they support Rel. 11.2, while nobody else does any longer).

Acutally there is no issue with the "virtual" nodes: FreeBSD can boot on them, and Linux, which is commonly supported, has a `sshd` command, has a `dd` command, and can access the raw disk device.


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## drhowarddrfine (May 5, 2022)

hbsd said:


> I don't use reddit as a trusted resource. just for stuff like this...


Well, that "stuff" is a BS list. Klara doesn't host anything including offering VPS services but it's on there. And how redditors less than zero will switch to IBM Cloud for their needs?
Meh. I don't want to talk about it anymore. Reddit is always a waste of time.


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## Jose (May 5, 2022)

PMc said:


> Yeah, I read that today. I didn't understand it fully - but their webpage says that up to december, they had offered you to buy a licence from them that would give you the permission to use FreeBSD.


Not sure where you're seeing this. I've never paid for Freebsd on Digitalocean.


hbsd said:


> ...I saw this topic on reddit: link. someone has introduced these sites...


Reddit proves its worth again. Klara Systems does not offer VPS hosting at all, AFAICT. I tried Nqhost once. Netactuate bought Rootbsd, and I'm very happy with their support. Unfortunately, I cannot find any self-service way of spinning up a VPS. All you get is a "contact us" form and presumably for-you pricing.

The thing that attracts me to Vultr is their clean and well-documented API for spinning up VPSes. I want mine to be scriptable and stateless so I can spin up a new one in minutes.


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## drhowarddrfine (May 5, 2022)

Just to add that I used Vultr for some clients a number of years ago and was very happy with their service.


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## richardtoohey2 (May 5, 2022)

Jose said:


> Netactuate bought Rootbsd, and I'm very happy with their support. Unfortunately, I cannot find any self-service way of spinning up a VPS.


I set a FreeBSD VPS up with them late last year - FreeBSD was an option (but something pretty old like 12.0-RELEASE).  But obviously things may have changed this year!


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## Jose (May 5, 2022)

It's official:


> Hello Jose,
> 
> Thank you for contacting DigitalOcean. I understand that you are concerned about the FreeBSD. I will be glad to help you.
> 
> ...


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## trev (May 5, 2022)

I left Digital Ocean some years ago because they would not allow my email servers to use IPv6.

Instead I have a tiny FreeBSD VPS on Vultr in New Jersey as a secondary mail server when they were providing a free IPv4 address as well as IPv6 blocks ($2.50+10% Australian GST / month). Never had a problem with it or email to/from it.

I also have a beefier FreeBSD VPS with Binary Lane (based in Australia). Again, never had a problem.


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## JozanOfAstora (May 5, 2022)

I have a small FreeBSD 12.0 VPS hosted on vultr. It's been running for a bit more than a year and I've always been very happy with it, can recommend. I plan on renting some more on Vultr too, I don't see a reason to change for now. The support has been nice too and efficient too.


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## freezr (May 5, 2022)

This is the full text version...



> _At DigitalOcean, our mission is to empower our customers by providing them with simple, reliable cloud infrastructure and we couldn’t be prouder to support customers and businesses like you developing world-class applications. We’re reaching out to let you know that we are phasing out our FreeBSD Droplet.
> 
> Starting July 1, 2022, FreeBSD Droplets will no longer be available. In order to simplify our cloud offerings and refocus our efforts on developing and maintaining distributions that our customers use most, we’re ending support for new FreeBSD Droplets.
> 
> ...



The point in my mind is why should I use any (X)BSD virtualized into a Linux host?

Doesn't make sense, that is why I am almost convinced to use *openbsd.amsterdam* despite costs more (5€ vs 5$); doesn't have a nice webUI like DO, Linode or Vultr but only a brutal SSH access.

OpenBSD is not FreeBSD, but for my specific use case probably is better since I do not require any FreeBSD features, thus the lesser I have to config the better.

Would be nice to have a FreeBSD garden for FreeBSD folks but today Linux is everywhere just because is became another marketing label such as Cloud, there not is any technical reason behind.


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## freezr (May 5, 2022)

JozanOfAstora said:


> I have a small FreeBSD 12.0 VPS hosted on vultr. It's been running for a bit more than a year and I've always been very happy with it, can recommend. I plan on renting some more on Vultr too, I don't see a reason to change for now. The support has been nice too and efficient too.



Until they decide *to empower* their customers removing the FreeBSD, which I hope not, but I won't trust such providers anymore.


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## freezr (May 5, 2022)

covacat said:


> my.frantech.ca if you want cheap storage too (mostly sold out, prepare your scripts to order )
> arubacloud.it



I think Aruba has been my very first provider for my very first HTML website...



PMc said:


> Yeah, I read that today. I didn't understand it fully - but their webpage says that up to december, they had offered you to buy a licence from them that would give you the permission to use FreeBSD.
> 
> Thats to the gods, back in 1995 when I started to use FreeBSD, they weren't there yet to give or not give me the permission. Computers didn't require driver's licences back then.





sko said:


> I haven't received anything in that regard yet from digitalocean despite running several FreeBSD droplets... (and exclusively running FreeBSD droplets for several years now)
> 
> [...]



Actually you can continue to use or import via API the FreeBSD image, but it becomes a second class citizen.

Since I don't have any vital service online I simply decided to not give money to a company that does not support FreeBSD as first class OS.


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## freezr (May 5, 2022)

RootBSD should had the same syndrome of DO, since it became Netactuate.

Almost same destiny for bsdvm:


> _BSDvm is shutting down its VPS and cloud hosting and will transform into BSD and Linux hosting review service_


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## sko (May 5, 2022)

freezr said:


> RootBSD should had the same syndrome of DO, since it became Netactuate.



I was desperately searching for that BSD-centric hoster that even had BSD in its name - turns out I was looking for RootBSD. Too bad they also transformed into one of those "standardized-KVM-stack-with-slightly-different-webUI" hosters. I really fear the day when a critical issue in that stack surfaces and 70% of all VPS hosters go dark...

I really hoped smartOS /w bhyve would gain some traction in that market, especially because it is excellently engineered and designed for automated orchestration from the ground up. Instead of fiddling dozends of loose ends together you basically just™ have to built a frontend that talks to the APIs that are already in place everywhere. But with most hosters being rather linux-centric, there's always the insurmountable hurdle of the NIH-syndrome of the linux-folks, that already prevented adoption of great things in the past (see dtrace or proper containerization like zones or jails...)


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## freezr (May 5, 2022)

it is a shame, but I would not chase Linux on its field.

Any BSD foundation should focus primarily on Schools and Academics, produce a lot of papers and researches, this is the only viable strategy against the linux-monoculture.


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## Jose (May 5, 2022)

Account deleted and purged.


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## msplsh (May 5, 2022)

What the heck, I just did a bunch of work on my servers this week.

But, wait, this looks like you can still run the instances, they just won't be providing the images.  Isn't this just a "hey, do your own support" sort of thing, then?


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## freezr (May 5, 2022)

msplsh said:


> What the heck, I just did a bunch of work on my servers this week.
> 
> But, wait, this looks like you can still run the instances, they just won't be providing the images.  Isn't this just a "hey, do your own support" sort of thing, then?



More or less...


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## Jose (May 5, 2022)

msplsh said:


> What the heck, I just did a bunch of work on my servers this week.
> 
> But, wait, this looks like you can still run the instances, they just won't be providing the images.  Isn't this just a "hey, do your own support" sort of thing, then?


It's some crockish workaround. The site they recommend doesn't even have a supported version of Freebsd 12. I'd go to AWS or GCP if I was interested in being a second-class citizen.


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## Lamia (May 5, 2022)

__





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VPS hosting veilige Europese cloud Tilaa




					tilaa.nl
				







__





						High Performance | SSD, NVMe VPS hosting – LiteServer
					

Reliable High Performance VPS server hosting using state of the art NVMe SSD hardware. LiteServer is well known in the industry since 2007!




					liteserver.nl


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## Factor (May 5, 2022)

Jose said:


> Account deleted and purged.


Mine as well.


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## freezr (May 5, 2022)

Factor said:


> Mine as well.



I am going to do the same shortly...


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## ralphbsz (May 5, 2022)

Both Amazon (a.k.a. AWS and EC2) and Google a.k.a. GCP) sell virtual FreeBSD machines. Both have a free "low usage" tier, where a small instance doesn't cost anything. According to their web sites, Microsoft (Azure) andIBM Cloud also have it, but I haven't tried those.

Disclaimer: After a year of completely free usage, my Google virtual FreeBSD machine actually does cost a little bit. It turns out network traffic to and from some high-cost areas is not free, and I pay typically $0.08 per month for packets being sent by hackers which die in my firewall. So I do see regular charges.


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## freezr (May 5, 2022)

Factor said:


> For low cost I like Contabo. They have DC in America, Asia, and Europe



Actually it is the best I've ever seen for that price...


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## freezr (May 5, 2022)

ralphbsz said:


> Both Amazon (a.k.a. AWS and EC2) and Google a.k.a. GCP) sell virtual FreeBSD machines. Both have a free "low usage" tier, where a small instance doesn't cost anything. I supposed Microsoft (Azure) also has it, but I haven't tried it.
> 
> Disclaimer: After a year of completely free usage, my Google virtual FreeBSD machine actually does cost a little bit. It turns out network traffic to and from some high-cost areas is not free, and I pay typically $0.08 per month for packets being sent by hackers which die in my firewall. So I do see regular charges.



I wouldn't use any Amason or Gugl service not even if they would pay me...
They already have in their hands everything we cannot continue to give them power...


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## freezr (May 5, 2022)

Deleted and purged my account too...


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## msplsh (May 5, 2022)

I like Digital Ocean enough to work on making the images work.


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## Jose (May 6, 2022)

msplsh said:


> I like Digital Ocean enough to work on making the images work.


Whatever works for you. I've had too many experiences like Sko's where the knee-jerk reaction whenever there's a problem is "install a supported OS and then we'll look into it" -- even when it's obviously a hardware problem like a bad HD.


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## sko (May 6, 2022)

Jose said:


> Whatever works for you. I've had too many experiences like Sko's where the knee-jerk reaction whenever there's a problem is "install a supported OS and then we'll look into it" -- even when it's obviously a hardware problem like a bad HD.



On a VPS that risk is rather minimal, but yes - it's always a bonus if the hoster supports the OS or at least shows enough competence to take valid complaints seriously no matter what OS is running.
Despite nagging about the old-but-current drawbacks like blocked port 25 on IPv6, no PTR/reverse records on IPv6 and a broken login form when they changed their UI a few years ago, I haven't had to deal with their support - so I don't know what to expect now with FreeBSD support being dropped.

I don't think I will cancel my account with them immediately, but for new VPS I will surely look into the alternatives. There are a lot of new contenders in the market since I choose to go with DO several years ago, now netcup or Contabo look like real alternatives - at least for VPS instances. The installation routine via mfsBSD and some auto-config-magic via e.g. REST API will be very similar for every hoster that doesn't support FreeBSD or whose images come with lots of bloat (e.g. python for some full blown cloud-init shenanigans if all you need is some IP auto-configuration). So There's not much to gain here except maybe setting a statement by showing there is actual interest and demand in FreeBSD VPS/Servers.
For DNS I don't see any benefits in moving away from DO yet - I use their API a lot, especially for certificate validation via acme.sh/letsencrypt. Migrating that would be a tedious task and I definitely know better things to spend my time with.


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## freezr (May 10, 2022)

I decided I'll go for Vultr, has an under-powered extremely cheap VPS perfect for my needs and budget!


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## jbo (May 10, 2022)

freezr said:


> I am looking for others providers that have a reliable history in supporting FreeBSD, please any suggestion and advice is very welcomed!


I made _extremely_ good experiences with Tilaa.com: https://www.tilaa.com/
They are based in the Netherlands.

I ran anywhere from 1 to 24 FreeBSD based VPSs at Tilaa over the course of the past 10 years. Never had a single complaint. It works extremely well, their support is awesome etc.


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## SirDice (May 10, 2022)

jbodenmann said:


> It works extremely well, their support is awesome etc.


Thumbs up for Tilaa from me too. Although I did switch VPS providers (I'm with TransIP now), it wasn't because of their services (or lack thereof). Would definitely recommend checking them out.


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## Lamia (May 11, 2022)

I first referred to Tilaa.nl in this thread and I was sure one or more members (SirDice most likely would be the first) will root for her too.
Tilaa is good. I started my journey into FreeBSD with the beautiful people there - Sven and co. I guess they have a few Tilaa employees in the forum.

I stopped using them over five years ago in favour of in-house hosting. 

Liteserver.nl is also good and cheaper, I suppose. They cater for a specific niche like backup with HDD. I have not used DO in over a decade ago.


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## Lamia (May 11, 2022)

SirDice said:


> I'm with TransIP now


They discriminate. I remember using them for a short time, and they were eager to chase away a customer for no good reason.


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## sko (May 11, 2022)

Thanks for mentioning Tilaa.nl and Liteserver.nl. I haven't heard of them yet, but both look intriguing and officially supporting FreeBSD and OpenBSD is a great selling point - although the fact that they still offer 11.3-RELEASE or 12.1-RELEASE makes me question their dedication to FreeBSD. To run the current 12.3-RELEASE you'd have to upgrade from 12.1, so you can also just start with a fresh installation (which might be faster anyways...).

Liteserver.nl doesn't seem to offer FreeBSD during instance creation, so it's yet another VPS you have to come up with your own setup routine (but 5EUR for 2 cores/2GB is still a great deal).


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## Lamia (May 11, 2022)

sko said:


> Liteserver.nl doesn't seem to offer FreeBSD during instance creation, so it's yet another VPS you have to come up with your own setup routine (but 5EUR for 2 cores/2GB is still a great deal).


No, you do not need setup your routine. They already have a few FreeBSD images you can choose from. I needed to remind them to get FreeBSD rolling though. I wonder why they still don't make it easy without their intervention. I noticed they have few hands if not one or two people behind it all.


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## Lamia (May 11, 2022)

Available Operating Systems (ISO / Templates) - Knowledgebase - LiteServer B.V.


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## sko (May 11, 2022)

So they at least provide you with an image, that's a start. I was originally only referring to the selection at instance creation (i.e. pre-installed/configured images), where they sadly only offer various linuxes...

But I'll definitely keep them on my watchlist for when I need a/some new VPS.


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## sko (May 16, 2022)

Maybe some others will also have received the info on pricing updates at digitalocean:






						Pricing Overview | DigitalOcean
					

Pricing Overview | DigitalOcean




					www.digitalocean.com
				




For the basic VPS plans this will be a 20% price increase. So yeah, now they are making the decision to migrate away pretty easy...


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## jbo (May 16, 2022)

sko said:


> For the basic VPS plans this will be a 20% price increase. So yeah, now they are making the decision to migrate away pretty easy...


If you look at OP's original post, DigitalOcean appears to drop FreeBSD entirely, so I doubt that FreeBSD folks currently/previously using DigitalOcean are migrating away because of the price increase


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## sko (May 16, 2022)

I know; I was following this thread from the beginning 

But apart from them dropping ('native') support for FreeBSD via pre-configured templates, the price increase they just announced might be the final straw for some more people to drop them entirely for VPS. (At least for me - 6$ for 1core/1GB at DO vs 5.55EUR for 4core/4GB at netcup is an absolute no-brainer)


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## msplsh (May 16, 2022)

Oh no, it's a dollar increase! 

Any hosting outside the USA is a No for me, unfortunately.


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## sko (May 16, 2022)

msplsh said:


> Oh no, it's a dollar increase!


its a 20% increase throughout all VPS types.
So yes, for the smallest it's 1$ - but it ramps up to pretty hefty numbers for the bigger VPS and/or if you run multiple mid-range VPS.
And it's also the overwhelmingly positive wording of the announcement that seems like a slap in the face when actually announcing such a big price increase. "Hey, we're making everything better! We won't give you more ressources, but we'll charge you 20% more for exactly the same service! This is so great for everyone!"


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## msplsh (May 16, 2022)

sko said:


> overwhelmingly positive wording of the announcement


You mean the part where they said they basically have eaten all of the marginal cost increases (power, inflation, etc) they've encountered for the past _decade_ and finally they can't do it anymore?  Seemed reasonable.

If cheap was the only metric, I would have done Linode.  Don't really like any of the other options people are throwing out here due to location, sparse features, or a general feeling of "this company doesn't seem like a long term investment", so as long as you can spin up a custom Droplet with FreeBSD on it, I'm ok with all of this.


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## Jose (May 17, 2022)

msplsh said:


> Don't really like any of the other options people are throwing out here due to location, sparse features, or a general feeling of "this company doesn't seem like a long term investment"...


How does any of this apply to Vultr? They have datacenters all over the world, and are headquartered in West Palm Beach, AFAICT.


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## msplsh (May 17, 2022)

Unless I'm looking at this wrong, their costs are either more or identical.


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## Jose (May 17, 2022)

msplsh said:


> Unless I'm looking at this wrong, their costs are either more or identical.





msplsh said:


> If cheap was the only metric, I would have done Linode.


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## malavon (May 17, 2022)

If you're running a lot of VPSes it might be cheaper to rent a server, install FreeBSD and use jails or VM (Xen,bhyve etc). I'm very happy with Hetzner myself.
And no KVM bug is ever going to impact your "VPS".


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## msplsh (May 17, 2022)

Funny, but inertia is also a thing.  Why change for the same or more $ service.


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## freezr (May 18, 2022)

I opted for Vultr... Still trying to make SSH working though... I am pretty sure is because PF is not set properly by default.


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## grahamperrin@ (May 22, 2022)

DigitalOcean​


Jose said:


> … a source for this? …



Phasing out creation of FreeBSD droplets​Via Reddit:

April 2022 Products and Features | DigitalOcean (2022-05-10)
– the relevant section:

DigitalOcean Droplets (IaaS)​*Ubuntu 22.04 LTS now available*

Ubuntu 22.04 LTS (ubuntu-22-04-x64) base image is now available in the control panel and via the API.

*FreeBSD Droplets are being deprecated 1st of July 2022*

To focus on our most used distributions we’re ending support for new FreeBSD Droplets. You will no longer be able to create new FreeBSD-based Droplets through the cloud control panel on the 1st of June 2022.

FreeBSD Droplets created from the 3rd of May to the 1st of July 2022 will continue to work despite these changes. Only legacy FreeBSD Droplets will remain on the platform.

You can create Droplets using FreeBSD after the 1st of July using DigitalOcean’s custom images feature to import a virtual disk image of FreeBSD OS.

DigitalOcean supports custom images, and creation of droplets from custom images, and directs readers to:

A collection of prebuilt BSD cloud images – bsd-cloud-image.org






Found by Google:

How to upload a FreeBSD custom image on DigitalOcean - Admin... by accident! (2022-03-15)
Whilst I have no direct experience, I _am_ aware that this (not specific to FreeBSD) is a problem for some potential users:



> … IPv6 can’t be used since it’s not supported on custom images. …


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## grahamperrin@ (May 22, 2022)

Jose said:


> Reddit proves its worth again. …



Do people also judge the worth of FreeBSD Forums – _in its entirety_ – based upon two bullet points _alone_?


Without conflation: <https://old.reddit.com/r/freebsd/comments/ui9z0m/-/i9jcud2/?context=1> aims to correct a misunderstanding.


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## drhowarddrfine (May 22, 2022)

grahamperrin said:


> Do people also judge the worth of FreeBSD Forums – _in its entirety_ – based upon two bullet points _alone_?


No but people judge the value of reddit based on decades of topics and commentary for all to read and news commentary such as National Public Radio's reporter saying "(Reddit) is a Frankenstein's monster even they can't control." I'll never forget hearing that a couple of years ago. Reddit is a ship for fools and there are far better places to learn and ask questions than there.


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## grahamperrin@ (May 22, 2022)

Phishfry said:


> my pet peeve is people asking the same question on both the forum and reddit at the same time.



I don't mind that, although when it's done without cross-referencing there's some duplication of effort.

Less duplication when the two communities can be more easily aware of each other's answers.



> … the me me me crowd who need instant answers. Not patient enough for the mailing lists.



Overwhelmingly: the main reason for my lack of engagement with the e-mail lists is their *non-suitability*. Even with a good client such as Thunderbird, it's not a smooth experience.



> The web interface …



The absence of threading i.e. _nesting_ within topics causes bickering to be seen by _everyone_ who views the topic. It's a recipe for trouble, especially in a community where some people seem to take the greatest pleasure in bickering and/or negativity. (I don't see you in the eight-page topic that was removed today.)


Less of a problem in Reddit, where threading with nesting is the norm.


For XenForo, an add-on:









						[OzzModz] Post Comments
					

Post Comments This product allows you to have your members reply directly to a post and have it display nested and inline.  By Default, XenForo will require use of bbcode to reply or quote a message. This add-on extends XenForo to allow for a...




					xenforo.com
				




– and discussion of the add-on:









						[OzzModz] Post Comments
					

Ozzy47 submitted a new resource:  [OzzModz] Post Comments - Threaded discussions with nested replies  Post Comments This product allows you to have your members reply directly to a post and have it display nested and inline.  By Default, XenForo will require use of bbcode to reply or quote a...




					xenforo.com
				






> … you can set the number of nests and you can set how many nests are visible at page load. to load deeper nests, user can click on a link to expand. …



– and so on.


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## grahamperrin@ (May 22, 2022)

Reddit​


Phishfry said:


> I like the lack of control on reddit. … only moderated during the great COC brew-ha-ha.
> Just like a good democracy. Bust some skulls once in a while to remind everyone who is in control.





grahamperrin said:


> the eight-page topic that was removed today



I wrote, before removal (of the entire topic):



> … *Self-moderation* seems to be better – at the group level, and at individual levels – in /r/freebsd. …



Self-moderation = less busting of skulls. That, plus the threading, which allows things to fizzle out naturally. And so on. An easy life for the moderator.


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## grahamperrin@ (May 22, 2022)

Back on-topic​


Lamia said:


> They (TransIP) discriminate. I remember using them for a short time, and they were eager to chase away a customer for no good reason.



Please, can you describe the discrimination? Or their supposed reasoning? 

(Send me a private message, if it's not something that should be public.)

Thanks


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## Lamia (May 23, 2022)

> Me: Record shows that you have changed my credit card account without my
> authorization. .......





> TransIP: As we detected that this was an unauthorised charge, the money has already been refunded....



Before that, they would not change a set of IP addresses for me. Their IP addresses were already blacklisted. Of course, they would fail for email services.


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## Lamia (May 23, 2022)

Apologies for the typos here and there; I recently noticed one in another of my posts in some threads.

W.r.t. the matter, it gets deeper. The above may not warrant the allegation  that they discriminate. But it may be wise to let the matter rest. Most people would infer it was the case if the details are out.

I have provided sensitive information that can be used to identify me. Yet, I can authoritatively say I did not use let alone enjoy their service. They offer plethora of packages though. It never worked yet I was paying; then unknowingly being charged.

Before inhouse hosting, I had a fabulous time with HostEurope Gmbh for over five years. They offered email services with OpenExchange (I hope it still exists). And their shared web hosting was good; I cannot remember using it for long. I reckon Tilaa was next for their dedicated servers. Another excellent service for over five years. Customer care is paramount.


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## bgrant (Jul 1, 2022)

Jose said:


> [posted his response from DigitalOcean -- I received a similar one]]
> 
> [...]
> If you wish to continue creating FreeBSD-based Droplets after July 1, we recommend downloading a cloud-ready image from the below URL and uploading it to your account as a Custom Image:
> ...



The Digital Ocean FreeBSD workaround for anything other than an existing droplet is to use custom images.  I wouldn't have a problem with that except they don't support IPV6 for custom images which is a non-starter for me.  I don't know what magic they have that they are unwilling to provide or document so custom images could have IPV6 support.

So no fresh installs of FreeBSD on Digital Ocean anymore if one needs IPV6.

I've spent the last 2 months trying out Linode, ArpNetwork and resurrecting my EC2 instance to see which one will work for me.  Except for lack of extra cycles I'd have tried out Vultr already also.  [Edit: now have tried Vultr]  You can skip the following unless you are interested in my experience.

My testing has been primarily to verify FreeBSD installs, IPV6 support, and Network speed.  Price, while a factor, is not my major deciding point.

Digital Ocean still has the best bandwidth to my Southern California ISP from their San Francisco Bay area CoLo but no FreeBSD support going forward (with IPV6).

Vultr has consistently good bandwidth from their LA CoLo.  Just about everything is perfect with Vultr except for a bug that causes a hang booting FreeBSD on a 1vCPU system when loading virtio_random.ko.  One has to work around by setting a hint at the loader prompt on boot or blacklist in a config file that kernel module.  I've filed a bug at: PR 265549

Linode has the next best bandwidth, pretty easy to install, a couple of IPV6 autoconfig glitches that have been solved through a decent support system for FreeBSD by Linode.  One odditity, they have images you can save for install/reuse but they have to be ext2 not raw. Thus I can't save a FreeBSD installation image for reuse building new VPS instances and have to download it via the a recovery boot each time before installing.  It is possible to load raw VM images from the pre-installed images on the FreeBSD site.  Also I found wide variability in performance between hosts my VM was on.

ArpNetwork has good FreeBSD support but I'm working through some inconsistent bandwidth issues for which I have an open ticket.  Their provisioning system is a little clunky compared to the others.

Amazon EC2 took forever for me to get the EC2 parameters right to allow IPV6 autoconfig (rtadv/dhcp).  As a benefit though there are great FreeBSD provided images to provision all the latest versions.

One of my tests was downloading a 1G file from each server to my home (abbreviations are the obvious two letter provider):
[EDIT: Added Vultr.com VPS data and updated Arp network bandwidth]


```
me@mynode ~$ scp root@do:bigfile .
bigfile                                                             100% 1024MB  47.1MB/s   00:21
me@mynode ~$ scp root@vu:bigfile .
bigfile                                                             100% 1024MB  47.8MB/s   00:21
me@mynode ~$ scp root@ec2:bigfile .
bigfile                                                             100% 1024MB  32.3MB/s   00:31
me@mynode ~$ scp root@ln:bigfile .
bigfile                                                             100% 1024MB  31.0MB/s   00:33
me@mynode ~$ scp root@an:bigfile .
bigfile                                                             100% 1024MB    9.3MB/s   01:50
```

Anyway for anyone who has read this far, I hope the above is of some use.

Bob

P.S. 11/18/22 

I settled on Vultr after both Arp Networks and Linode had inconsistent bandwidth to my ISP.  Linode was a close second and both Vultr and Linode allow you to upload golden images which I created using the FreeBSD Virtual Machine raw image as a base.  By customizing the VM image with my SSH keys and some other initial info I can spin up a VM on either Vultr or Linode with a couple of clicks and be ready to go without installation steps or funky workarounds.  Linode doesn’t provide ISOs and Vultr has a strange bug that I workaround with a loader hint.


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## subnetspider (Jul 3, 2022)

I've been using IONOS for about 1.5 years or so, you have to manually install FreeBSD on your VPS, but they provide the ISOs themselves. They also have ISOs for OpenBSD and OpenIndiana, but they usually lag behind a version.
I've never had to contact support for help so far, so I can't give an opinion on that.
Network speeds are good enough for me (400 Mbps w/out bandwidth cap) and IPv6 addresses are free.
The prices are ok, the web GUI has as many features as I need, but unfortunately they don't support U2F, only TOTP.
For their VPS S (1vCPU, 0.5GB RAM, 10GB SSD) and VPS S+ (1vCPU, 1GB RAM, 20GB SSD) the seem to use VMware ESXi and for their CPU a Intel Xeon E5-2683 v3.

For small personal projects, I can recommend them so far.


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## robroy (Jan 3, 2023)

FYI:  I switched from DigitalOcean to Vultr yesterday based on feedback shared here.

I'm running a 512 MB / 1 vCPU VM (their smallest and slowest option that includes IPv4).

The bill's $3.50 per month and it's working fine.


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## freezr (Jan 3, 2023)

robroy said:


> FYI:  I switched from DigitalOcean to Vultr yesterday based on feedback shared here.
> 
> I'm running a 512 MB / 1 vCPU VM (their smallest and slowest option that includes IPv4).
> 
> The bill's $3.50 per month and it's working fine.


I do the same, are you using ZFS or UFS as filesystem?


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## robroy (Jan 3, 2023)

freezr, I'm using UFS.  It looks like this (I have a Jail using 1.3 GB of that space).


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## freezr (Jan 3, 2023)

robroy so do I...
I have a bastille jail to handle my Gemini capsule with GMID


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