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Topic: SporeStack: Launch VPS servers with Bitcoin. Anonymous, API driven (Read 19788 times)

sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
Is it suitable for opening a tor-network on this?

I don't understand your question. Could you rephrase it?
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
There's been some steady improvements on SporeStack lately. I've caught up on some tech debt, lots more to go.

Working towards offering more Torified flavors as well.

I love my customers a lot. I'm grateful to have any at all. It really isn't enough to sustain me, though.

Sometimes I wonder if SporeStack is worth anything, if someone would want to buy it. It's something always in the back of my head. Can't really unplug for more than 24 hours. Try to reply to customers as soon as possible.

I've moved back in with my parents. Just not making enough on SporeStack to have my own place. Been looking for work and having basically no luck.

One of the few things I don't like about SporeStack is that it isn't really enabling people to be more independent. I guess I like self-hosting more and more. I'd rather see people be able to host servers themselves, maybe out of their own homes. Of course I know the limitations there. It's not straightforward offering reliable services.

I've been slowly trying to pull off of 3rd party services. Hosting my own code, shifting slowly off Github. Having all the source code I need on hand.

I have a lot of ideas for SporeStack. Want to have a Javascript-free launcher. Switch it over to being based on FreeBSD. Add back in a Vultr driver.

Just what I really want to do is buy some land up here in Idaho and learn how to live off it. Learn how to make my own clothes, grow my own food, hunt my meat. Once (and if) I can provide for my own existence, then seeing what I actually want to do from there. I'd rather write letters to people than emails, although my handwriting is really terrible.

I've been keeping SporeStack going for over 3 years. It's the first of its kind and thankfully inspired some similar services.

I get tired sometimes. I question how things are going around me. I am finding out my skills are becoming more and more irrelevant in the workforce. Starting to think if I can't get some land, I might have to try being a mechanic. At least I'd be working with my hands.

If I ever were to sell SporeStack, which I'd be really surprised if I did any time soon, I'd really want it to be to someone likeminded and who I could trust. It is pretty special to me and I want my users to be taken care of really well. I hope I'm not losing too much trust with this post. It might be a pipe dream, just might be nice to get out of this line of work for a while. Especially when I can't live on it as it is.

I wake up and get on my laptop. I double check graphs before I go to bed. I find technology fascinating, but I feel more slave to it than master.

It'd be nice to feel at peace without some constant rush of dopamine all the time.

I hope you all are doing well. Thank you for reading.
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
Few small updates.

Added RancherOS, CentOS 8, updated Fedora to 31, and ZFS images for FreeBSD.

https://sporestack.com/
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
Price for torified servers has dropped from $17.92 / 28 days ~ to $7.00 / 28 days ~. Also, Digital Ocean servers will shut down at expiry and only get deleted 24 hours after expiry. This helps signal if you haven't paid for a server, in case you might want to keep it going.

Also some updates to the web launcher.

Merry Christmas!
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
One more update. Now you can enable the settlement tokens from the website. You only have to email me if you want one for free (for affiliate).
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
I'd like to announce affiliates on SporeStack. Bit late to the game, but this system is a bit different than most.

If you are looking to make money configuring servers for people, this could be an option for you. As well as the traditional link based referrals.
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
You can now query your balance and top up settlement tokens here.

Or here on the Tor Hidden Service: http://spore64i5sofqlfz5gq2ju4msgzojjwifls7rok2cti624zyq3fcelad.onion/settlement_tokens/
jr. member
Activity: 76
Merit: 2
Is it suitable for opening a tor-network on this?

I don't understand your question. Could you rephrase it?

I think he wants to know whether its possible to use your servers under tor network.

But you've already answered that question on the first page.

newbie
Activity: 106
Merit: 0
Is it suitable for opening a tor-network on this?
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
Lots of changes to the web launcher. Would appreciate any feedback you may have.
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
Settlement tokens are back. If you want to prepay and have a token that lets you build/topup servers from a balance, just let me know. This way you don't have to make a transaction per server if you don't want to.

This is the codebase if you are curious.
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
Added Ubuntu 16.04 and 18.04 support to Tor Hidden Hosting.
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
Wanted to let you all know that Bitcoin Cash support is broken at the moment.
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
Monero support is now live! You can pay with Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin SV, or Monero.

https://sporestack.com/ - http://spore64i5sofqlfz5gq2ju4msgzojjwifls7rok2cti624zyq3fcelad.onion/
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
You can now launch clearnet servers entirely over Tor, using the Tor web launcher.

The latest sporestack-python will automatically use your local Tor SOCKS proxy (127.0.0.1:9050) if you use
Code:
--api_endpoint http://spore64i5sofqlfz5gq2ju4msgzojjwifls7rok2cti624zyq3fcelad.onion
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
Bump. Lots of improvements on the web launcher.
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
Bump! Added FreeBSD images.
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
I've updated the web launcher quite a bit. Most recently was an option to attach a key by the file as opposed to having to copy/paste (but, you're still given the option to copy/paste if you prefer).

The latest change was a bit of a retheme and I added sliders in addition to the number inputs for days to live, cores, memory, and disk. I hope this makes it a bit more straight forward.

Before:



After:



So feel free to give it a try. If you use Bitcoin SV and Money Button, there's also a url=https://bitcoinvps.github.io]launcher for that[/url]. Further, the Money Button launcher would be very easy to duplicate and take your own affiliate cut.
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
Bump. Happy Saturday!
legendary
Activity: 3696
Merit: 4343
The hacker spirit breaks any spell
Thank you! I appreciate it. I would like to add Monero next. The Bitcoin-based ones were fairly easy as I have similar libraries for all of them Monero. Will be a little more involved.

I'm also a fan of Dash. I should get better automated testing in place to be sure the currencies I have up are working as expected. Don't want to have the option to pay and have it break on someone when they go to use it.

dash is good too Smiley
in my humble opinion you can choice:
or Monero (better)
or Dash
or Zcash
or Grin

is same in my opinion
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
Thank you! I appreciate it. I would like to add Monero next. The Bitcoin-based ones were fairly easy as I have similar libraries for all of them Monero. Will be a little more involved.

I'm also a fan of Dash. I should get better automated testing in place to be sure the currencies I have up are working as expected. Don't want to have the option to pay and have it break on someone when they go to use it.
legendary
Activity: 3696
Merit: 4343
The hacker spirit breaks any spell
Here's a proof of concept for buying servers with Money Button.

Would be really easy to set this up as an affiliate to take your own cut.


good job dude, i hope you can implement monero/dash/zcash or other privacy focus coin
i've read your blog, interesting as well (and your projects are interesting)
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
Here's a proof of concept for buying servers with Money Button.

Would be really easy to set this up as an affiliate to take your own cut.
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
legendary
Activity: 3696
Merit: 4343
The hacker spirit breaks any spell


These servers are expensive and not anonymous as says here: https://sporestack.com/news/#2017-04-01
Stop the fake advertising

——
Now, spawn usage will be slightly different.
sporestack spawn --days 28 --full_name 'Satoshi Nakamoto' --ssn 524-01-0711 --phone 210-555-1337 --cc '4929 7089 0341 6566' --dob 1990-01-01 --photo_id ./drivers_license.jpg

What you say may be true (I did not investigate), but the idea and implementation is nice.
I like it very much as a project!
obviously for anonymous uses, I would never use it. I'm paranoic.
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
These servers are expensive and not anonymous as says here: https://sporestack.com/news/#2017-04-01
Stop the fake advertising

——
Now, spawn usage will be slightly different.
sporestack spawn --days 28 --full_name 'Satoshi Nakamoto' --ssn 524-01-0711 --phone 210-555-1337 --cc '4929 7089 0341 6566' --dob 1990-01-01 --photo_id ./drivers_license.jpg

It's fair if you think the servers are too expensive. There is a notable account over signing up at Vultr (who takes Bitcoin) and getting servers from there. For many, that is the best way to go.

About your claims of not being anonymous, I think you didn't notice that the post was made on April Fools two years ago, and says "(April Fools!)" at the bottom.
newbie
Activity: 76
Merit: 0
Servers last from 1-28 days, but can usually be topped up. Multiple regions available, multiple Linux images and iPXE. No registration required, no IPs logged.

Pretty easy to try:

Launch on the website: https://sporestack.com/

Or your console:

Code:
pip3 install  sporestack
sporestackv2 launch YourHostname --operating_system debian-9 --ssh_key_file ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub --days 1 --currency btc

Handy for development, quick VPNs, network test servers, or building out a whole infrastructure on microservices. Giving the servers fixed lifetimes lets you expect failure and short server life so that you develop around it.

Also supports hidden hosting, launching a server that's only accessible through Tor.

More information at SporeStack.com, or the V3 onion service on Tor.

In action:

https://sporestack.com/static/sporestackv2-screenshot.png

Pricing:
(Does not apply to hidden, Tor-only servers)
Cores    Memory (GiB)    Disk (GiB)    Bandwidth (TiB)    Approximate price per 28 days (USD)
1    1    25    1    9.00
1    2    50    2    18.00
1    3    60    3    27.00
2    2    60    3    27.00
3    1    60    3    27.00
2    4    80    4    36.00
4    8    160    5    72.00
6    16    320    6    144.00
8    32    640    7    288.01
12    48    960    8    432.00
16    64    1280    9    576.00
20    96    1920    10    864.01
24    128    2560    11    1152.00
32    192    3840    12    1728.00

Thanks!

These servers are expensive and not anonymous as says here: https://sporestack.com/news/#2017-04-01
Stop the fake advertising

——
Now, spawn usage will be slightly different.
sporestack spawn --days 28 --full_name 'Satoshi Nakamoto' --ssn 524-01-0711 --phone 210-555-1337 --cc '4929 7089 0341 6566' --dob 1990-01-01 --photo_id ./drivers_license.jpg
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
I would like to offer $30 worth of BTC, BCH, or BSV for up to five people to review SporeStack.

I am looking for impartial reviewers who will be honest and give me useful feedback and reviews for others to know about SporeStack, here in this thread (or new threads, if applicable).

Of the $30 worth, I would like $10 to be spent on the platform and $20 to be kept for your time. No word minimums or anything like that, although screenshots would be nice.

Looking for people who have some reputation on Bitcoin Talk, ideally an existing review or two they can reference, who know at least the basics of using Linux, and have used VPS hosts before.

Please reply here or in PM if you are interested.

Thank you for your time.
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
I've added region selection to the front page: https://sporestack.com/

If you select the Digital Ocean host, you can pick a region to launch your server in.
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
This looks very useful. I'd certainly consider this next time i need a VPS again.

Thank you!

Just added a pricing table on the front page: https://sporestack.com

Pricing
(Does not apply to hidden, Tor-only servers)
Cores    Memory (GiB)    Disk (GiB)    Bandwidth (TiB)    Approximate price per 28 days (USD)
1    1    25    1    9.00
1    2    50    2    18.00
1    3    60    3    27.00
2    2    60    3    27.00
3    1    60    3    27.00
2    4    80    4    36.00
4    8    160    5    72.00
6    16    320    6    144.00
8    32    640    7    288.01
12    48    960    8    432.00
16    64    1280    9    576.00
20    96    1920    10    864.01
24    128    2560    11    1152.00
32    192    3840    12    1728.00
jr. member
Activity: 33
Merit: 3
>>>davidtaighmott.net<<< [[I sell cool merch!!]]
This looks very useful. I'd certainly consider this next time i need a VPS again.
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
Just launched a web launcher and a very minimal JS library. It's right on the front page: https://sporestack.com/

Please let me know what you think!
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
Bump.

Added a screenshot.

sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
Bitcoin SV now supported: https://sporestack.com/news/#2019-04-19

This is in addition to Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash.
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
I'd like to announce SporeStack's new hidden hosting. You can launch a server over Tor that only communicates through Tor and is accessed through a Hidden Service.

More details here: https://sporestack.com/news/#2019-02-27

Or on our hidden service: http://spore64i5sofqlfz5gq2ju4msgzojjwifls7rok2cti624zyq3fcelad.onion/news/#2019-02-27

Also, V1 has been removed replaced with V2. Usage is quite different.

Code:
$ ssh-keygen # If you don't have an SSH key already.
# pip is the Python package manager. Make sure you are using Python 3.
$ pip3 install sporestack
# The easiest way. BTC is also supported.
$ sporestackv2 launch Your_Internal_Hostname --days 1 --operating_system ubuntu-18-04 --ssh_key_file ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub --currency bch

# Pay from a WalkingLiberty wallet (easier for automation), only spawn on hosts that allow topping up.
$ sporestackv2 launch Your_Internal_Hostname --days 1 --operating_system ubuntu-18-04 --ssh_key_file ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub --currency bch --walkingliberty_wallet (walkingliberty wallet) --want_topup True

# Or with IPXE and being more specific with other options. iPXE installs will take longer, but offer more flexibility.
$ sporestackv2 launch Your_Internal_Hostname --ipv4 /32 --ipv6 /128 --disk 10 --memory 1 --days 1 --ipxescript_file ubuntu-18-04.ipxe --currency bch --walkingliberty_wallet (walkingliberty wallet) --want_topup True

# Or both iPXE and OS/SSH key, whichever has capacity.
$ sporestackv2 launch Your_Internal_Hostname --ipv4 /32 --ipv6 /128 --disk 10 --memory 1 --days 1 --ipxescript_file ubuntu-18-04.ipxe --operating_system ubuntu-18-04 --ssh_key_file ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub --currency bch --walkingliberty_wallet (walkingliberty wallet) --want_topup True

# Or launch a "hidden" node with Tor networking for Bitcoin.
$ sporestackv2 launch Your_Internal_Hostname --api_endpoint http://spore64i5sofqlfz5gq2ju4msgzojjwifls7rok2cti624zyq3fcelad.onion --ipv4 tor --ipv6 tor --disk 5 --days 1 --ipxescript_file ubuntu-18-04.ipxe --currency btc
legendary
Activity: 3696
Merit: 4343
The hacker spirit breaks any spell
great work dude

i follow you from start and your service is one of the best


i like too zeit/now.sh but your service is similar Smiley
copper member
Activity: 630
Merit: 2614
If you don’t do PGP, you don’t do crypto!
Hello, Teran,

Thanks for the thoughtful reply.  It’s rare to see such discussion.  I apologize for the delayed response.

Although I don’t know how Sporestack works internally, Lightning is actually ideal for your business model.  Your concern isn’t too clear, but I infer you think there is some need of per-customer accounting state.  If so, no, this is not the case.  It is not necessary to have a payment channel open with each customer.  You simply present customers with single-use Lightning payment requests which can encode much useful information, including the amount and the request expiration time.  Payment requests are designed to be embedded in QR codes, though you need a bigger QR code area than you do for a Bitcoin address.  This can be used by any customer who can find a route to your node (rather like the Internet itself).  Payments are source-routed; and there has been extensive work on onion-routing (exactly in the Tor sense).

Lightning overall keeps less state than on-chain transactions, insofar as the only global and/or permanently immutable state is in channel open/close transactions on the blockchain; information on individual payments is local and, if desired, somewhat ephemeral.  Also, you never really know where a payment is coming from, which should suit you fine.

Otherwise stated, Lightning will indeed support this business model:

But the bread and butter of SporeStack is anyong being able to pick up a Bitcoin or Bitcoin Cash mobile wallet, scan a QR code, and get a server.

Moving money respectively onto or off of your Lightning channels to fund a channel or “cash out” onto the blockchain is conceptually not too different than moving money between hot and cold wallets.  If you already run a Core node, clightning will work with that, too.

I may have more to say on these matters.  I do like your business model.  Yet to start with, I simply wanted to clarify about Lightning Network.
copper member
Activity: 630
Merit: 2614
If you don’t do PGP, you don’t do crypto!
SporeStack now accepts Bitcoin Cash: https://sporestack.com/news#2017-12-12

SporeStack accepts (and prefers) Bitcoin Cash

2017-12-12

We highly recommend switching over to Bitcoin Cash as soon as possible for SporeStack use.

Well, this is unfortunate.  I’ve quietly had my eye on Sporestack for over a year, with an eye toward future projects.  As an all-Tor, all-the-time ghost in the.nym.zone with no means of payment other than Bitcoin, it seemed well suited to me.  But I’m prudent in saving my bits; and I did not have an urgent need for a VPS.  Thus, I simply checked in every few months to see the latest developments—and now, when I have a potential immediate need for service.

FYI, pushing the agenda of Bitcoin distorters and their kakocracy will exclude Bitcoin zealots as your potential customers.  Case in point:  Me.

I’d say good-bye at this point, but I am curious:  If fees were the problem, as stated on the Sporestack website, then why didn’t you add Lightning Network support?  LN mainnet became active soon after you started “highly [recommending]” fake-Bitcoin.  Come to think of it, I may soon need some means to anonymously set up a Lightning node in the cloud.

I’m also curious as to whether your recommendation still holds when with Segwit addresses, for almost two months now, I’ve been paying fees sometimes as low as 1 sat/B (!), never higher than 5 sat/B.
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
SporeStack now accepts Bitcoin Cash: https://sporestack.com/news#2017-12-12

Migrating for Python 3 for the SporeStack library/CLI is recommended  but not mandatory at this time.

I know Shapeshift supports but I do not know if they have an API you can integrate to, but wouldn't it be good to accept Ethereum as well? Has good prices and fast network confirmations. You can (as I mentioned, if possible) integrate through Shapeshift so you can get paid in BTC/BCH anyway.

It is definitely possible. I had Dash or Monero as the next one on my roadmap, but Ethereum is another option.

I'll look into ShapeShift's API more and see if it can work for this. Bitcoin Cash was the most natural next coin to add. Now that I'm supporting two currencies, others should be much easier down the road.

I think ShapeShift would have to wait for at least one confirmation so it'd be quite a bit slower. It'd be much easier to work with if I can make a SporeStack payment token or internal credit system of some kind.

Thanks for replying!
legendary
Activity: 1638
Merit: 1329
Stultorum infinitus est numerus
SporeStack now accepts Bitcoin Cash: https://sporestack.com/news#2017-12-12

Migrating for Python 3 for the SporeStack library/CLI is recommended  but not mandatory at this time.

I know Shapeshift supports but I do not know if they have an API you can integrate to, but wouldn't it be good to accept Ethereum as well? Has good prices and fast network confirmations. You can (as I mentioned, if possible) integrate through Shapeshift so you can get paid in BTC/BCH anyway.
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
SporeStack now accepts Bitcoin Cash: https://sporestack.com/news#2017-12-12

Migrating for Python 3 for the SporeStack library/CLI is recommended  but not mandatory at this time.
sr. member
Activity: 617
Merit: 256
ICO Accelerator & Consultant
You guys should have a more permanent option.
I for one would love to start a vm on Vultr but due to their deanonymizing, I would like some other options..
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
Finally, prices are now automatically pinned to the dollar: https://sporestack.com/news#2017-11-03

This means the cost should be a lot more reasonable even when Bitcoin goes up some incredible amount in a single month. Unfortunately, sending transactions under 10,000 Satoshis can be tricky so there is a "price floor" there. You'll see much better rates at 7-28 days than 1-2 days. Not to mention TX fees as well.

-Teran
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
sr. member
Activity: 391
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Ah, I see. So it is more for the redundancy that the 28 days limit is implemented? Does that mean that topping up can be done *up to* the 28 days since the original creation date or the time is reset so that the VPS stops 28 days after the top-up date?

Furthermore, I see you manually update bitcoin prices to follow their price in relation with fiat. What fixed USD prices are you trying to follow, to compare with Vultr's stock prices? I do have  a Vultr account but I do want to try out SporeStack because of how much simpler the command line looks to scale and automate my server applications. Looking forward to trying this out.

Eh, kind of for redundancy. It's a long discussion for why I use ephemeral servers, but there's so many ways servers can fail past the hardware. You may erase something accidentally, it may be hacked, you may upgrade it and something may break. Which is why I make sure I can recreate servers without having any loss in functionality, at least for the most part. So rather than configure a server by hand I have configuration management do it, either shell scripts or Saltstack. And ideally you when you create a new server you update it at the same time. If there are failures you can still rely on the current server until you address whatever issues there are.

You can topup past the 28 day mark. There's actually kind of a bug that lets you topup indefinitely, but only in 28 day intervals. So I can spin up a server today with a 28 day lifetime and buy 28 day topups one after the other until my money runs out. With Bitcoin in general top up and prepay works better than postpay since you can't force someone to pay from an address, it has to be done before hand. I would still recommend automating topup if you choose to use it, so you don't buy a year's worth of hosting and then forget what to do next year (it seems silly but it happens, it's like SSL certificate renewal that way).

I agree, I need to add in price pinning to USD. That'll be one of the next features that come along.

I think I've been trying for a 100% margin, maybe a little less. But Vultr's 1GiB server is only $5 a month so that's $10 a month which I think is pretty reasonable. However the Bitcoin price keeps going up so I'm probably well over that now, and of course there are TX fees which are definitely more expensive paying per server than rather credit based for the account. I have surprisingly few complaints about cost and no time soon will I try to be the cheapest provider, only the most automated.

It really is a niche hosting service. There's a lot of unusual things you can do like launch servers that end up completely autonomous and self-sustaining. I did this with Tor relays: http://go-beyond.org/post/autonomous-crowd-funded-tor-relays/

One of the other cool next things you could do is have the servers try to mine cryptocurrencies and convert to Bitcoin to keep themselves alive longer. It may save you 10, 20, 30% in the long run depending on what you are mining.

Thanks for trying out SporeStack! Let me know if you have any more questions.
legendary
Activity: 1302
Merit: 1007
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
I really like the concept of a fully API/CLI-driven IaaS platform. This looks to function similar to platforms such as Heroku which allow you to build applications through the command line. My only concern with the way you have built it is the 28-day limit which others have asked about but I still don't understand why it is there as well as the prices for the VPS servers not being visible, or at the very least I could not find them. If I may ask, are these servers built on top of another platform, and if so which? There seem to be quite many different locations that I don't think you would have set up yourself to host the servers on which these VPSs are run. I would like to know about the reliability and uptime of these servers.

Thank you for your reply.

I guess in that way it is like Heroku but this is a couple layers lower, providing just the infrastructure and nothing like a Python app abstraction layer. Of course you could build that on top of SporeStack. I wanted to start with servers as the base layer and build from there.

The 28 day limit is intentional. I've designed it to be ephemeral by default, which is more of a modern practice and takes some getting used to. For the most part rather than upgrading the same server over and over, you'd just replace it with another. This has some advantages on my end as well.

The easiest way to see the price is to just try and spawn a server and see how many Bitcoins it requests. https://launch.sporestack.com/ shows it a bit better, but masks the flavors from you. You can guess the cost by looking here: https://sporestack.com/node/options

There's a base_satoshis_per_day. There's a random amount added onto that of 1-10,000 Satoshis that's used for identifying your payment. It's a very unusual system but you can see how it works here: https://github.com/teran-mckinney/bitcoinacceptor-python

Yes, currently all of the servers are created on Vultr. They accept Bitcoin as well, although I think you have to provide a credit card. They are great to work with. SporeStack adds an anonymous layer and I tend to prefer my API/tooling on top of it. Using Vultr directly is cheaper.

If you want a very traditional VPS and don't mind Vultr knowing who you are, they are a pretty good bet.

That said, you can "topup" your servers with SporeStack. There's a topup command so you can topup past the 28 day mark. Now down the road that may fail for some reasons. Say I start hosting these myself and there's a critical patch I need to apply to the host, say some security vulnerability. As a host you have two options: Take everyone down unexpectedly, live migrate to another host (more on that later), or let all VMs expire from the machine. So in that case I would mark the host to not have new servers built there and to not allow renewals. Once the servers expire (at very worst, 28 days from then), then I can patch it and restart it. Or say the server has to be moved from one datacenter or another, the same applies. You are going to have some unexpected downtime with public clouds unless they employ a lot of behind the scenes live migration. Which is doable but tricky to pull off, especially without any incidents at all. Some people do manage it well and I've never been a fan of it. In my mind, too many moving parts and there are cases where it doesn't work at all, if the host is degraded enough.

I would say the reliability of Vultr is about what I expect normally. Maybe a restart of a VM due to some host issue, once per 12 VM months? Maybe a bit more than that, just kind of a number I threw together. Occasionally there are boostrap issues where a VM does not boot at all the first time, maybe 1 in 80 or so, I'm not sure.

In general, servers will always fail so it's best to make a completely redundant architecture. Say you get to 99.99% reliability per server, adding another makes it almost improbable that you'll be totally down. Whereas adding more nines gets to be quite expensive.

In the future I may add more providers or try to host these myself. But in those cases the servers will only come up with iPXE -- different providers with stock images will just vary much too much and iPXE is probably the best way to make it more of a uniform platform.

Here's an example using self-renewing: https://github.com/sporestack/launch.sporestack.com

And my blog replaces itself every week: https://github.com/teran-mckinney/staticator/

I also have an example doing self-renewing and self-propagating: http://go-beyond.org/post/autonomous-crowd-funded-tor-relays/

Those examples are automated and work by sending Bitcoin to a new wallet that the servers use themselves. You an also watch for when the server is about to explore locally and run sporestack topup.

I hope this answers your questions. Let me know if you are curious about anything else.
legendary
Activity: 1302
Merit: 1007
I really like the concept of a fully API/CLI-driven IaaS platform. This looks to function similar to platforms such as Heroku which allow you to build applications through the command line. My only concern with the way you have built it is the 28-day limit which others have asked about but I still don't understand why it is there as well as the prices for the VPS servers not being visible, or at the very least I could not find them. If I may ask, are these servers built on top of another platform, and if so which? There seem to be quite many different locations that I don't think you would have set up yourself to host the servers on which these VPSs are run. I would like to know about the reliability and uptime of these servers.
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
I've added a AUTO region feature so you can specify "AUTO", "AUTO-NA", or "AUTO-EU" as the region (--dcid in the sporestack client). A datacenter with capacity will be randomly selected and used. Can be a better option than just using one datacenter and hoping it never fills up, especially in the case of automation.

https://sporestack.com/news#2017-08-21
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
Another price drop to bring prices back in line with the current USD<->BTC prices. Hopefully I can automate this in the future.

https://sporestack.com/news#2017-07-28
sr. member
Activity: 391
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Bump. Just a reminder that there's a hidden service you can use over Tor: http://spore64zke3ofvbp.onion/
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
I now have a script for deploying Debian 9 on SporeStack via iPXE if anyone is interested. Hoping that iPXE deployments can make multiple providers more possible in the future.
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
SporeStack is now being used to enable autonomous computing. You can launch a tor relay, it will publish a Bitcoin address, and funds to the address will cause it to renew itself or even buy another, if funds are high enough.

http://go-beyond.org/post/autonomous-crowd-funded-tor-relays/
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
We've dropped Satoshi prices by 25%: https://sporestack.com/news#2017-05-03

25% more servers for your Bitcoin :-).
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
I've made some tweaks so it's easier to have servers buy other servers.

I've rolled this out on go-beyond.org: http://go-beyond.org/post/skynet-0.0.1/

I now have SporeStack servers buying the next set of SporeStack servers before expiry.
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
legendary
Activity: 3696
Merit: 4343
The hacker spirit breaks any spell

localhost? Cheesy fix the url

identity is required only if you extend duration?
full member
Activity: 218
Merit: 100
How can one use this service as an RDP / VPS ?
I know it runs on Linux, but can I have a GUI / SSH mode? (noob here)

Pretty interesting service. I am surprised you haven't had much media coverage yet.

Regards
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
I've added top up support to SporeStack, making it more useful for traditional VPS users.

https://sporestack.com/news#2017-03-13

It's pretty straight forward. Every server created has a UUID. You can see that UUID with
Code:
sporestack list
. Then run
Code:
sporestack topup --days 28 --uuid (UUID)
to extend the server's end of life.
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
I've added iPXE support to SporeStack.

Example:

Code:
$ cat coreos
#!ipxe

set base-url http://stable.release.core-os.net/amd64-usr/current
kernel ${base-url}/coreos_production_pxe.vmlinuz sshkey="ssh-rsa yourkeyhere"
initrd ${base-url}/coreos_production_pxe_image.cpio.gz
boot
$ sporestack spawn --days 2 --ipxe --startupscript coreos

Couple minutes later:

Code:
ssh core@(uuid returned).node.sporestack.com

You'll need to upgrade to the latest sporestack pip: pip install sporestack --upgrade

You can also do:
Code:
sporestack spawn --ipxe_chain_url http://boot.netboot.xyz
, grab the kvm_url from
Code:
sporestack list
, point your browser at it, then boot any number of images from there.

Still kind of in progress, but it works from my testing.
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
I added a Hidden Service for SporeStack: http://spore64zke3ofvbp.onion/

With the latest sporestack pip installable, you can launch servers using the Hidden Service.

Code:
sporestack --endpoint http://spore64zke3ofvbp.onion spawn
legendary
Activity: 3696
Merit: 4343
The hacker spirit breaks any spell
nice, definitely absolute cool Smiley
i will add enemy territory and other free games
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
I've also launched https://launch.sporestack.com/ since I last updated this thread.

really cool service! ^_^ VPN! wow and Minecraft Server Cheesy

u can add more "game" server? like enemy territory, unreal, etc?

Definitely possible. If there's a Linux or FreeBSD daemon for the game, you can write a launch script to make it happen.

You can see the current ones here and create a pull request to submit a new one: https://github.com/sporestack/node-profiles
legendary
Activity: 3696
Merit: 4343
The hacker spirit breaks any spell
I've also launched https://launch.sporestack.com/ since I last updated this thread.

really cool service! ^_^ VPN! wow and Minecraft Server Cheesy

u can add more "game" server? like enemy territory, unreal, etc?
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
More updates to SporeStack. I've now moved http://go-beyond.org/ over to it.

You can see how I use it here: https://github.com/teran-mckinney/staticator

I've also launched https://launch.sporestack.com/ since I last updated this thread.
legendary
Activity: 3696
Merit: 4343
The hacker spirit breaks any spell
great job
i'm follow this project and when i need disposable server i'll use it

now i use a "buffer" vps, but is ugly way.. disposable is better
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
Thank you all for your feedback!

SporeStack is now available over HTTPS: https://sporestack.com/

The client has changed from 'nodemeup' to 'sporestack'. 'sporestack spawn' is equivalent to 'nodemeup'.

Changes demonstrated here: https://asciinema.org/a/100459
legendary
Activity: 1988
Merit: 1007
Looking at your site it's interesting. But why you only sell servers for 1-28 days ? I don't understand if you are able to continue with same server after that time period (renew the contract after every 28 days for the same server) or new server is generated every time ?

28 days is the max life of any one server that I offer, by design. If you want to have them for longer, just create another one near expiry time and switch over.

Server failures are pretty inevitable so if you iron out an automated process to replace them every month it should be beneficial once you get past the annoying phase. Handling failure is a part of good infrastructure design. It also makes security patching a bit easier as you just replace the entire server.

I 100% agree with this principle. I don't necessarily agree that having temp servers is a great thing, but keeping servers up (when accounting for DDoS, traffic spikes, updates, etc.) requires redundancy, and that would, by its nature, make this fine (automated process to spin up new servers as others go down).
legendary
Activity: 3696
Merit: 4343
The hacker spirit breaks any spell
Thank you! Yes to both of your questions.

Still need to clean up the code more, but the client code and library is released into the public domain: https://github.com/sporestack/sporestack-python/blob/master/sporestack/nodemeup.py

Just tested it with torsocks. Seems to work fine as
Code:
torsocks nodemeup

very nice ^_^ i love it
thank you

very nice project again
legendary
Activity: 1878
Merit: 1038
Telegram: https://t.me/eckmar
Looking at your site it's interesting. But why you only sell servers for 1-28 days ? I don't understand if you are able to continue with same server after that time period (renew the contract after every 28 days for the same server) or new server is generated every time ?

28 days is the max life of any one server that I offer, by design. If you want to have them for longer, just create another one near expiry time and switch over.

Server failures are pretty inevitable so if you iron out an automated process to replace them every month it should be beneficial once you get past the annoying phase. Handling failure is a part of good infrastructure design. It also makes security patching a bit easier as you just replace the entire server.

Yeah but think about someone wanting to launch their app with your service. That person will have to migrate files and database every month and if he have somewhat decent website (decent like got some cool features) it will for sure be pain in the ass
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
really nice project

and commandline executables is opensource?
can used under tor network?

Thank you! Yes to both of your questions.

Still need to clean up the code more, but the client code and library is released into the public domain: https://github.com/sporestack/sporestack-python/blob/master/sporestack/nodemeup.py

Just tested it with torsocks. Seems to work fine as
Code:
torsocks nodemeup
legendary
Activity: 3696
Merit: 4343
The hacker spirit breaks any spell
really nice project

and commandline executables is opensource?
can used under tor network?
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
I like the web apps you make. What do you do or have you done?
Are you interested in working with startups?

Thank you!

Before Answer Market, Coinfee, and SporeStack, I've worked at Matterport, ThousandEyes, and Rackspace. A long while back I developed two Linux distributions. I'm definitely more in the infrastructure/devops realm, but I am working more and more on my development skills.

LinkedIn covers my work history pretty well: https://www.linkedin.com/in/teran-mckinney

Matterport and ThousandEyes were startups. When I joined Matterport, I was the one of two infrastructure people on the current team. I like startups, but they can be hit or miss with direction. It really depends on the mission and the people, but I don't mind a bit of chaos and starting from the ground up. I can work quickly or work well, but I prefer biasing to working well and getting things done in a way that is sustainable for the long term. I also know that sometimes you need to work fast to rush something out the door, in a pinch.

My preference is for half-time and remote, but I am open to most opportunities. Even if remote, I can travel to the office (if there is any, heh) from time to time. Especially for starting out.

I do have a phone interview today and am looking into another opportunity, but nothing has been settled or decided yet. If you're interested, please send me an email. I can give you my phone number and we can talk more from there.

I appreciate your interest! I hope that answers your question. I'm excited to talk to you if you are still interested.

Quote
Thank you for your share. It's very useful for me
I will rent some vps for sporestack.

Thank you! I'm glad to hear that. If you have a black text on white terminal you may have issues with the QR code. A reverse terminal seems to be the only one that works for that. I'm thinking about alternating QR colors to be sure one works. Not sure if there's a way I can probe the terminal for its color behavior...
full member
Activity: 168
Merit: 100
Thank you for your share. It's very useful for me
I will rent some vps for sporestack.
legendary
Activity: 854
Merit: 1000
I like the web apps you make. What do you do or have you done?
Are you interested in working with startups?
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
Vultr's European and Asian regions have been added. Lots of small updates across the board, but I think the nodemeup's help page tells the most:

Code:
usage: nodemeup [-h] [--osid OSID] [--dcid DCID] [--flavor FLAVOR]
                [--days DAYS] [--uuid UUID]

optional arguments:
  -h, --help       show this help message and exit
  --osid OSID      Default: 230 (FreeBSD 11)
                   216: Ubuntu 16.04 i386
                   147: CentOS 6 i386
                   152: Debian 7 i386 (wheezy)
                   140: FreeBSD 10 x64
                   194: Debian 8 i386 (jessie)
                   225: Fedora 24 x64
                   193: Debian 8 x64 (jessie)
                   128: Ubuntu 12.04 x64
                   215: Ubuntu 16.04 x64
                   148: Ubuntu 12.04 i386
                   179: CoreOS Stable
                   127: CentOS 6 x64
                   234: OpenBSD 6 x64
                   139: Debian 7 x64 (wheezy)
                   167: CentOS 7 x64
                   230: FreeBSD 11 x64
                   231: Ubuntu 16.10 x64
                   232: Ubuntu 16.10 i386
                   233: Fedora 25 x64
                   160: Ubuntu 14.04 x64
                   161: Ubuntu 14.04 i386
                   162: CentOS 5 x64
                   163: CentOS 5 i386
  --dcid DCID      Default: (probably) 3 (Dallas)
                   24: Paris
                   25: Tokyo
                   39: Miami
                   12: Silicon Valley
                   19: Sydney
                   40: Singapore
                   1: New Jersey
                   3: Dallas
                   2: Chicago
                   5: Los Angeles
                   4: Seattle
                   7: Amsterdam
                   6: Atlanta
                   9: Frankfurt
                   8: London
  --flavor FLAVOR  Default: 9 (768MiB)
                   95: RAM: 4096, VCPUs: 4, DISK: 90
                   29: RAM: 768, VCPUs: 1, DISK: 15
  --days DAYS      Days to live: 1-28. Defaults to 1.
  --uuid UUID      Force a specific UUID.
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
Looking at your site it's interesting. But why you only sell servers for 1-28 days ? I don't understand if you are able to continue with same server after that time period (renew the contract after every 28 days for the same server) or new server is generated every time ?

28 days is the max life of any one server that I offer, by design. If you want to have them for longer, just create another one near expiry time and switch over.

Server failures are pretty inevitable so if you iron out an automated process to replace them every month it should be beneficial once you get past the annoying phase. Handling failure is a part of good infrastructure design. It also makes security patching a bit easier as you just replace the entire server.
legendary
Activity: 1878
Merit: 1038
Telegram: https://t.me/eckmar
Looking at your site it's interesting. But why you only sell servers for 1-28 days ? I don't understand if you are able to continue with same server after that time period (renew the contract after every 28 days for the same server) or new server is generated every time ?
sr. member
Activity: 391
Merit: 333
Servers last from 1-28 days, but can usually be topped up. Multiple regions available, multiple Linux images and FreeBSD 11. No registration required, no IPs logged.

Pretty easy to try:

Code:
pip install  sporestack
sporestack spawn

Handy for development, quick VPNs, network test servers, or building out a whole infrastructure on microservices. Giving the servers fixed lifetimes lets you expect failure and short server life so that you develop around it.

Video demo, asciinema demo, and more information at SporeStack.com

Send me an email if you need any help integrating it: [email protected]

Thanks!
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