Benefits
With MetalVPS you can:
-
see everything that’s happening on your VPS’s Node! For example, you can see how many VPSes there are on your Node, how many other VPSes besides yours are running, and how your Node is performing.
-
launch your own VPSes and containers from your shell.
-
verify, understand, and modify the entire software stack which runs your VPS.
-
conveniently run a lot of pre-installed software directly on the Node. For example, on our Dallas Node, there are several graphical desktop systems including KDE and XFCE. Also, command line terminal hackers will find the OpenBSD ksh shell in addition to bash. For the curious, there’s Chaitin’s Lisp interpreter, MIT’s Xv6 Operating System, TCL, and tons more. Plan 9 from Bell Labs is there via plan9port. Docker is installed. There is a 100 GB primary partition for debootstrap, LinuxFromScratch, etc. We would love for you to add to the pile!
You also can:
- study up on installing dedicated servers by accessing the HP iLO interface (Dallas) or the Intel IMM interface (FMT).
And, by far the best, 
you can:
- enjoy talking with and learning from your MetalVPS neighbors!
Disadvantages
-
MetalVPS has no billing panel and no server control panel. It’s all command line until you install a GUI or activate whatever pre-installed GUI you want. MetalVPS has no onboarding and no knowledge base.
-
MetalVPS is ephemeral. It might blow up! We might reinstall the Node. Frequent reboots are required for updates. Long running services are discouraged.
-
No warranty. No service level agreement. Not for business use.
-
For sure you need your own backups because MetalVPS doesn’t do them for you.
Who?
With a lot of help from the MetalVPS neighbors, MetalVPS is a project of @Not_Oles a/k/a Tom Miller a/k/a the clueless™ guy.
As of this writing, there are six MetalVPS neighbors in Dallas of whom four have sudo privileges. The newly added FMT2 Node is available both to existing and to new neighbors.
Most of the MetalVPS neighbors don’t log in very often. @Not_Oles visits multiple times per day.
Why?
Why not? It’s fun to play with and learn about servers, operating systems, and the internet. 
Pricing
MetalVPS costs $20.22 per month. Free or lower cost accounts sometimes are possible. No payment is due until your account is set up and you are 100% satisfied. Payments available via Paypal and Stripe.
How it works
MetalVPS is White Hat!
Today, Darkstar is running the full “everything” version of Slackware64-current. Slackware64-current requires reboots at least every week or ten days for kernel updates.
Today, the newly added HE FMT2 node is running Proxmox 7.2-7.
Darkstar node specs
-
Server: HP BL460c G6
-
CPU: 2 x Xeon L5630. 2 x 4 cores = 8 cores = 16 threads
-
RAM: 48 GB DDR3 ECC
-
Hard Drive: 2 x 400GB SAS SSD, Hardware RAID 1
-
IP Addresses: IPv4/29, IPv6/64
-
Connection: 1 GBit/s port
-
Bandwidth: 10 TB
-
Datacenter: Colocated with Level One Servers inside Carrier-1, Dallas, Texas, USA 🇺🇸
HE FMT2 node specs
-
Server: Intel S2600GZ
-
CPU: 2 x Xeon E5-2630L v2, 2 x 6 cores = 12 cores = 24 threads
-
RAM: 32 GB DDR3 ECC (upgrade to 64 GB in process)
-
Hard Drive: 1 x 500 GB SSD, 2 x 1 TB HDD
-
IP Addresses: IPv4/28, IPv6/48
-
Connection: 1 GBit/s port
-
Bandwidth: Fair use
-
Datacenter: Rented from Cloudie Networks, LLC inside Hurricane Electric Fremont 2, Fremont, California USA 🇺🇸
More information
Please check MetalVPS.com or comment here if you need additional information!
Thanks very much!