TierHive - Update post - 6th November 2026 - HAProxy updates

AnthonySmith

@WSS said:

@AnthonySmith said: Devuan 6.1 is now available,

Lawds. Back when I joined TIerHive you had to roll your own! zswap is decent, but the base install can be pruned a bit- exchange OpenSSH for Dropbear, tighter init and flushing. The installer itself fails hard at 96MB, but can just scoot by with 128MB provided you're gentle with it.

Yeah I have to balance it so standard users don't struggle, might add recipes for further tuning.

AnthonySmith

@vpsgeek3333 said:
General question about NAT VPS:

Why no one offers Windows KVM/Hyper-V NAT VPS in general, is it due to high resource usage by Windows or Microsoft licensing terms and conditions?

I have been having similar thoughts and conversations in my head recently, while it's tempting it might be a totally different product.

I might add windows xp for funzies

WSS

@AnthonySmith said: I might add windows xp for funzies

You do realize the first thing people are going to do is install ancient web browsers and then bitch when nothing works, right?

Also, licensing. Even if you add an "unsupported" version of Windows for play, someone's going to try to bring their own. Not a great place to start from.

@AnthonySmith said:

@WSS said:

@AnthonySmith said: Devuan 6.1 is now available,

Lawds. Back when I joined TIerHive you had to roll your own! zswap is decent, but the base install can be pruned a bit- exchange OpenSSH for Dropbear, tighter init and flushing. The installer itself fails hard at 96MB, but can just scoot by with 128MB provided you're gentle with it.

Yeah I have to balance it so standard users don't struggle, might add recipes for further tuning.

If you prune down to virtio and no extra junk like pcspkr, et al, you can get it down to Alpine size in-RAM use. It's amazingly versatile for being a recent Debian base.

vpsgeek3333

@AnthonySmith said:

@vpsgeek3333 said:
General question about NAT VPS:

Why no one offers Windows KVM/Hyper-V NAT VPS in general, is it due to high resource usage by Windows or Microsoft licensing terms and conditions?

I have been having similar thoughts and conversations in my head recently, while it's tempting it might be a totally different product.

I might add windows xp for funzies

I recently suggested it to a friend also who provides KVM Windows VPS hosting with BYOL policy, he was worried about getting under the radar of MS because he thinks with NAT VPS e.g Windows Server 2025...many users would possibly use cracked licenses on the same IPv4 with shared ports.

Suggested Hyper-V NAT VPS product to another provider who does have legit Windows Server 2025 Datacenter edition on 4-5 year old hardware doing nothing, he was afraid of MS terms and conditions regarding this.

I have observed that hosting providers not located in Europe and US are more open to suggestions regarding Windows products. Makes no sense to worry about MS policies when you have already paid a lot to MS for a Windows Datacenter edition which lets you host unlimited Hyper-V VPS.

TierHive should offer it, Windows XP will be fun definitely. For other versions of windows like Server 2019/2022/2025, offer it only when you're sure it is not going to bring any trouble since you are also based in the UK.

risturiz

https://reactos.org/project-news/reactos-0416-released/

AnthonySmith

@risturiz said:
https://reactos.org/project-news/reactos-0416-released/

That could be the move!

AnthonySmith

Gentoo is also available again, the stock image is bloated with a capital PH rerolled runs on 384mb and 7GB disk with a 7.2.x kernel

It is what it is, if you use gentoo you already know I dont need to say much more, you know what you want and no one will change your mind.

MX Linux, NixOS and Void tomorrow and that should bring the crazy template revamp to an end, everything relevant should be covered.

marios

I'm curious to see how low you can push NixOS resource usage

AnthonySmith

@marios said:
I'm curious to see how low you can push NixOS resource usage

Well it's kind of reversed optimisations in that you end up shooting yourself in the foot.

terrorgen

@marios said:
I'm curious to see how low you can push NixOS resource usage

Us too. @AnthonySmith if you managed to do it, we would love to see your nix files.

unlilpromax

nice

AnthonySmith

Void Linux added.

# uname -a
Linux gravelines-void-linux-01 6.18.59_1 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Tue Oct 27 00:31:02 UTC 2026 x86_64 GNU/Linux

# free -m
               total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:              85          39          15           0          38          46
Swap:            127           0         127

# df -h
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
devtmpfs         35M     0   35M   0% /dev
tmpfs            43M     0   43M   0% /dev/shm
tmpfs            43M  272K   43M   1% /run
/dev/vda1       929M  340M  574M  38% /
tmpfs            43M     0   43M   0% /tmp

top - 19:02:17 up 1 min,  0 users,  load average: 0.05, 0.03, 0.00
Tasks: 85 total, 1 running, 83 sleep, 0 d-sleep, 0 stopped, 1 zombie
%Cpu(s):  0.0 us,  4.5 sy,  0.0 ni, 90.9 id,  0.0 wa,  4.5 hi,  0.0 si,  0.0 st 
MiB Mem :     85.7 total,     12.6 free,     41.7 used,     38.6 buff/cache     
MiB Swap:    128.0 total,    128.0 free,      0.0 used.     44.0 avail Mem 

Musl based, rolling release, void uses bin/sh as standard not bash, I enabled zswap as standard, and it works on 128mb ram and 1GB disk.

I think it was @flips that was asking about it a while ago?

Enjoy!

AnthonySmith

Long day, but Florida, Brazil and South Africa are live.

As always starting with minimal hardware specs to get a feel and see if its worth spending more money in that location.... cough cough Vancouver sucks!

risturiz

O-M-G LETS GO!!

AnthonySmith

NixOS... why does it exist... I don't know; do I hate it? yes, Do I appreciate it.. also yes, will I use it ever again... maybe, part of me feels like I could make an insanely tuned hypervisor out of it, the other part of me says... debain is fine thanks.

Anyway... it took 2 days longer than expected but I got it functional with 512mb ram and 5GB disk (you can get away with 3 but not if you want to use it)

[root@gravelines-nixos-01:~]# df -h
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/vda1       4.9G  1.5G  3.4G  30% /
tmpfs           116M  2.3M  114M   2% /run
devtmpfs         24M     0   24M   0% /dev
tmpfs           232M     0  232M   0% /dev/shm
none            1.0M     0  1.0M   0% /run/credentials/systemd-journald.service
tmpfs           232M 1008K  231M   1% /run/wrappers
none            1.0M     0  1.0M   0% /run/credentials/systemd-networkd.service
none            1.0M     0  1.0M   0% /run/credentials/[email protected]
tmpfs            47M  4.0K   47M   1% /run/user/0

[root@gravelines-nixos-01:~]# free -m
               total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:             463         107         217           3         171         355
Swap:            462           0         462

top - 19:56:35 up 9 min,  1 user,  load average: 0.00, 0.02, 0.02
Tasks: 69 total, 1 running, 67 sleep, 0 d-sleep, 0 stopped, 1 zombie
%Cpu(s):  0.0 us,  4.5 sy,  0.0 ni, 90.9 id,  0.0 wa,  4.5 hi,  0.0 si,  0.0 st 
MiB Mem :    463.1 total,    217.1 free,    107.5 used,    171.7 buff/cache     
MiB Swap:    463.0 total,    463.0 free,      0.0 used.    355.6 avail Mem 

[root@gravelines-nixos-01:~]# nixos-version 
26.05.13050.08d3a97586f6 (Yarara)

[root@gravelines-nixos-01:~]# uname -r
6.18.59

[root@gravelines-nixos-01:~]# ls -la /etc/nixos/
total 28
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root  4096 Oct 28 19:47 .
drwxr-xr-x 21 root root  4096 Oct 29 19:47 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 root root   197 Oct 29 18:57 configuration.nix
-rw-r--r--  1 root root   433 Oct 29 18:57 hardware-configuration.nix
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 11822 Oct 29 18:57 tierhive.nix

[root@gravelines-nixos-01:~]# nix-env --list-generations --profile /nix/var/nix/profiles/system
  10   2026-10-29 18:58:31   (current)

It was a SOB to get running within 512mb ram and also functional during rebuild; it should be said 512MB is JUST enough, so probably experts only or give yourself 640 at least, my first tests: nothing worked with anything less than 1GB Ram and that was pushing it.

Anyway, the template is live, and feedback is welcome; strong OS choice... but who am I to judge? The panel even needed a small update for this to stop password resets from falling back to md5 haha.

AnthonySmith

Thats the template work done for now, we will just run monthly updates as needed going forward, we do have 1 in the works that might take a while as its a very custom spin of Alpine cut to the bone and tuned specifically for TierHive but thats a project in its own right.

WSS

@AnthonySmith said: NixOS... why does it exist

I like that this is the distribution that broke you. Now try to get DragonflyBSD to run in 512MB and a small disk.

When you went to Devuan and Void, I figured you were just following the distributions I went through in reverse order.

terrorgen

This by itself needs a standing ovation. I believe you have gone where no one in NixOS ever had been.

Wonder if you are willing to upstream your nix files, or at least share it here?

AnthonySmith

@terrorgen said:
This by itself needs a standing ovation. I believe you have gone where no one in NixOS ever had been.

Wonder if you are willing to upstream your nix files, or at least share it here?

Sure feel free to strip out and share whatever, I will do a write up on everything tomorrow, I kept notes.

terrorgen

I need you need to anyway, since people need to import it to keep their NixOS configuration minimal.

AnthonySmith

Alpine 3.23 is back after being fixed/optimised

gravelines-alpine-01:~# free -m
              total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:             94          29          23           0          41          59
Swap:             0           0           0
gravelines-alpine-01:~# df -h
Filesystem                Size      Used Available Use% Mounted on
devtmpfs                 10.0M         0     10.0M   0% /dev
shm                      46.8M         0     46.8M   0% /dev/shm
/dev/vda                953.0M    144.9M    761.1M  16% /
tmpfs                    18.7M    140.0K     18.6M   1% /run

snake

This is seriously impressive stuff.

WSS

@AnthonySmith In a world that's become bloated with Javascript as a service provider, people who think docker keeps away the big bad hacker, and incredibly bloated desktops- this is refreshing.

AnthonySmith

@WSS said:
@AnthonySmith In a world that's become bloated with Javascript as a service provider, people who think docker keeps away the big bad hacker, and incredibly bloated desktops- this is refreshing.

Honestly, I fear Docker, I always have. I never understood the fascination.

To me docker = lets remove all skill requirements even at a foundational level and do a really bad implementation of openvz which had enough issues to begin with but at least was backed by mature security concious developers with a track record in security.

Then someone added kubernettes to remove even more skill while adding an entire additional and bloated skill class to achieving what we always already could.

Now we just have YAML experts that dont even know what init is.

I dont know... thats straight out of my arse, but thats roughly how I feel, if my infrastructre was running on docker/containers in general these days I would be worried.

david3

For comparison, here's one of my alpine boxes that I installed at the beginning of TierHive and just upgraded to 3.23 when it was available.

tier-singapore:~# free -m
              total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:             91          48           8           0          35          35
Swap:           128           0         128

tier-singapore:~# df -h
Filesystem                Size      Used Available Use% Mounted on
devtmpfs                 10.0M         0     10.0M   0% /dev
shm                      45.5M         0     45.5M   0% /dev/shm
/dev/vda                953.0M    184.3M    721.7M  20% /
tmpfs                    18.2M    172.0K     18.0M   1% /run

The only other thing running on it is shadowsocks. I'm almost tempted to reinstall it. But even this is fine.

The swap is zram.

AnthonySmith

@david3 said:
For comparison, here's one of my alpine boxes that I installed at the beginning of TierHive and just upgraded to 3.23 when it was available.

tier-singapore:~# free -m
              total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:             91          48           8           0          35          35
Swap:           128           0         128

tier-singapore:~# df -h
Filesystem                Size      Used Available Use% Mounted on
devtmpfs                 10.0M         0     10.0M   0% /dev
shm                      45.5M         0     45.5M   0% /dev/shm
/dev/vda                953.0M    184.3M    721.7M  20% /
tmpfs                    18.2M    172.0K     18.0M   1% /run

The only other thing running on it is shadowsocks. I'm almost tempted to reinstall it. But even this is fine.

The swap is zram.

https://tierhive.com/blog/tierhive-howto/full-wordpress-on-debian-13-with-only-256mb-ram-ultra-minimal-guide

Not that anyone would want too these days, but, it is probably possible using the sqlite plugin for WP to get it running on alpine with this 128mb box.

xDorito

Just wanted to drop in from lurking and say thanks. I really enjoy the platform and its these fun experimental images and recipes paired with the low price and great care that make it something special. I just enjoy using it.

AnthonySmith

@terrorgen said:
This by itself needs a standing ovation. I believe you have gone where no one in NixOS ever had been.

Wonder if you are willing to upstream your nix files, or at least share it here?

https://lowendspirit.com/nixos on 512mb ram

There you go, formatting is a bit off but should give you the info fine.

AnthonySmith

thos-test:~# uname -a
Linux thos-test 6.18.59-thos #1 SMP Thu Oct 29 20:56:10 UTC 2026 x86_64 Linux
thos-test:~# df -h
Filesystem                Size      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/root               957.7M     15.8M    937.8M   2% /
devtmpfs                 10.0M         0     10.0M   0% /dev
tmpfs                    23.3M     48.0K     23.2M   0% /run
shm                      58.2M         0     58.2M   0% /dev/shm
thos-test:~# free -m
              total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:            116          11          97           0           9         102
Swap:           128           0         128
thos-test:~# ls /etc
acpi             crontabs         group            inittab          mke2fs.conf      motd             opt              profile          resolv.conf      shadow           sysctl.conf
apk              dropbear         hostname         issue            modprobe.d       mtab             os-release       profile.d        runlevels        shells           sysctl.d
busybox-paths.d  e2scrub.conf     hosts            local.d          modules          network          passwd           protocols        securetty        ssl              udhcpc
conf.d           fstab            init.d           logrotate.d      modules-load.d   nsswitch.conf    periodic         rc.conf          services         ssl1.1           udhcpd.conf

Little sample of something else. This will be one of the templates when we finally push out the free tier of Tierhive. I guess the template will be available on both, but this is how cut down they will be when finished.

adsd1022

I'm really impressed by everything you've achieved in such a short period. I'm looking forward to seeing your next

skorous

@AnthonySmith said:

@WSS said:
@AnthonySmith In a world that's become bloated with Javascript as a service provider, people who think docker keeps away the big bad hacker, and incredibly bloated desktops- this is refreshing.

Honestly, I fear Docker, I always have. I never understood the fascination.

To me docker = lets remove all skill requirements even at a foundational level and do a really bad implementation of openvz which had enough issues to begin with but at least was backed by mature security concious developers with a track record in security.

Then someone added kubernettes to remove even more skill while adding an entire additional and bloated skill class to achieving what we always already could.

Now we just have YAML experts that dont even know what init is.

I dont know... thats straight out of my arse, but thats roughly how I feel, if my infrastructre was running on docker/containers in general these days I would be worried.

Don't want to hijack the thread too much but a slightly different take on this. You're not wrong that it can remove all the fundamental skills but that's not necessarily the fault of the technology - that's just people being people. You can say the same thing about Windows. Or computers in automobiles. I have at best basic mechanical skills but I fix all kinds of stuff on my cars for certain generous definitions of 'fix'.

To me, the important part is that it decouples the applications from the system they sit on. Application A needs a library version X? Fine. Application B needs that same library but at version Y? Fine. It's all inside the container anyway. Vendor suddenly requires their tomcat apps run on Tomcat 10? Upgrades are a single pull. Find out afterward that some of your application extensions/plug-ins dont support 10? Roll back. All while the OS itself remains unchanged.

Just my $0.02.

AnthonySmith

This time in the correct thread

thos-r2:~# free -m
              total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:             53          10          38           0           5          41
Swap:            53           0          53
thos-r2:~# df -h
Filesystem                Size      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/root               957.7M     15.8M    937.8M   2% /
devtmpfs                 10.0M         0     10.0M   0% /dev
tmpfs                    10.5M     48.0K     10.5M   0% /run
shm                      26.4M         0     26.4M   0% /dev/shm
thos-r2:~# apk add nginx
(1/3) Installing pcre2 (10.49-r0)
(2/3) Installing nginx (1.30.6-r0)
  Executing nginx-1.30.6-r0.pre-install
  Executing nginx-1.30.6-r0.post-install
(3/3) Installing nginx-openrc (1.30.6-r0)
Executing busybox-1.37.0-r31.trigger
OK: 16.2 MiB in 37 packages
thos-r2:~# free -m
              total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:             53          11          35           0           6          39
Swap:            53           0          52
thos-r2:~# rc-service nginx start 
 * Caching service dependencies ...                                                                                                                                                                                                   [ ok ]
 * Starting nginx ...                                                                                                                                                                                                                 [ ok ]
thos-r2:~# free -m
              total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:             53          17          27           0           9          34
Swap:            53           0          52
thos-r2:~# top -b -n1
Mem: 23244K used, 30748K free, 72K shrd, 456K buff, 8752K cached
CPU:   0% usr   0% sys   0% nic 100% idle   0% io   0% irq   0% sirq
Load average: 0.00 0.00 0.00 1/47 952
  PID  PPID USER     STAT   VSZ %VSZ CPU %CPU COMMAND
  944   943 nginx    S    12788  24%   0   0% nginx: worker process
  943     1 root     S    12324  23%   0   0% nginx: master process /usr/sbin/nginx -c /etc/nginx/nginx.conf
  796   795 root     S     1720   3%   0   0% -sh
  952   796 root     R     1648   3%   0   0% top -b -n1
    1     0 root     S     1636   3%   0   0% /sbin/init
  773     1 root     S     1636   3%   0   0% /sbin/getty 38400 tty1
  795   766 root     S     1556   3%   0   0% /usr/sbin/dropbear -i -s
  766     1 root     S      948   2%   0   0% /bin/busybox-extras tcpsvd -c 100 -C 20 -l 0 :: 22 /usr/libexec/thos-ssh-conn
   25     2 root     SW       0   0%   0   0% [kswapd0]
    7     2 root     IW       0   0%   0   0% [kworker/0:0-eve]
   11     2 root     IW<      0   0%   0   0% [kworker/R-mm_pe]
   10     2 root     IW       0   0%   0   0% [kworker/u4:0-ev]
   13     2 root     IW       0   0%   0   0% [rcu_sched]
   12     2 root     SW       0   0%   0   0% [ksoftirqd/0]
   14     2 root     SW       0   0%   0   0% [rcu_exp_par_gp_]
   16     2 root     SW       0   0%   0   0% [migration/0]
   17     2 root     SW       0   0%   0   0% [cpuhp/0]
   18     2 root     SW       0   0%   0   0% [kdevtmpfs]
   19     2 root     IW<      0   0%   0   0% [kworker/R-inet_]
   20     2 root     SW       0   0%   0   0% [oom_reaper]
   21     2 root     IW<      0   0%   0   0% [kworker/R-write]
   22     2 root     IW<      0   0%   0   0% [kworker/R-kbloc]
   23     2 root     SW       0   0%   0   0% [irq/9-acpi]
   24     2 root     IW<      0   0%   0   0% [kworker/R-ata_s]
    6     2 root     IW<      0   0%   0   0% [kworker/R-slub_]
   26     2 root     SW       0   0%   0   0% [hwrng]
   27     2 root     SW       0   0%   0   0% [scsi_eh_0]
   28     2 root     IW<      0   0%   0   0% [kworker/R-scsi_]
   29     2 root     SW       0   0%   0   0% [scsi_eh_1]
   30     2 root     IW<      0   0%   0   0% [kworker/R-scsi_]
   31     2 root     IW<      0   0%   0   0% [kworker/R-mld]
   32     2 root     IW       0   0%   0   0% [kworker/u4:1-ev]
   33     2 root     IW       0   0%   0   0% [kworker/u4:2-ev]
   34     2 root     IW       0   0%   0   0% [kworker/u4:3-ev]
   35     2 root     IW       0   0%   0   0% [kworker/u4:4]
   36     2 root     IW<      0   0%   0   0% [kworker/R-ipv6_]
   37     2 root     IW<      0   0%   0   0% [kworker/0:1H]
   38     2 root     IW       0   0%   0   0% [kworker/0:2]
   39     2 root     SW       0   0%   0   0% [jbd2/vda-8]
   40     2 root     IW<      0   0%   0   0% [kworker/R-ext4-]
    8     2 root     IW<      0   0%   0   0% [kworker/0:0H-kb]
    4     2 root     IW<      0   0%   0   0% [kworker/R-rcu_g]
    2     0 root     SW       0   0%   0   0% [kthreadd]
    3     2 root     SW       0   0%   0   0% [pool_workqueue_]
    5     2 root     IW<      0   0%   0   0% [kworker/R-sync_]
    9     2 root     IW       0   0%   0   0% [kworker/0:1-mm_]
   15     2 root     SW       0   0%   0   0% [rcu_exp_gp_kthr]

thos-r2:~# cat /proc/version
Linux version 6.18.59-thos (thos@tierhive) (gcc (Alpine 15.2.0) 15.2.0, GNU ld (GNU Binutils) 2.45.1) #1 SMP Fri Oct 30 17:59:20 UTC 2026
thos-r2:~# cat /proc/cmdline
BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-thos root=/dev/vda rootfstype=ext4 rw console=ttyS0,115200 console=tty0 quiet virtio_blk.queue_depth=32 swiotlb=1024 page_reporting.page_reporting_order=0
thos-r2:~#   dmesg | head -50
[    0.003010] CPU topo: Num. threads per package:   1
[    0.003011] CPU topo: Allowing 1 present CPUs plus 0 hotplug CPUs
[    0.003025] kvm-guest: APIC: eoi() replaced with 0xffffffff9f239890()
[    0.003038] [mem 0x04000000-0xfeffbfff] available for PCI devices
[    0.003039] Booting paravirtualized kernel on KVM
[    0.003041] clocksource: refined-jiffies: mask: 0xffffffff max_cycles: 0xffffffff, max_idle_ns: 19112604462750000 ns
[    0.003046] setup_percpu: NR_CPUS:8 nr_cpumask_bits:1 nr_cpu_ids:1 nr_node_ids:1
[    0.003138] percpu: Embedded 38 pages/cpu s124376 r0 d31272 u2097152
[    0.003142] pcpu-alloc: s124376 r0 d31272 u2097152 alloc=1*2097152
[    0.003145] pcpu-alloc: [0] 0 
[    0.003169] kvm-guest: PV spinlocks disabled, single CPU
[    0.003170] Kernel command line: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-thos root=/dev/vda rootfstype=ext4 rw console=ttyS0,115200 console=tty0 quiet virtio_blk.queue_depth=32 swiotlb=1024 page_reporting.page_reporting_order=0
[    0.003234] random: crng init done
[    0.003235] printk: log buffer data + meta data: 16384 + 57344 = 73728 bytes
[    0.003241] Dentry cache hash table entries: 8192 (order: 4, 65536 bytes, linear)
[    0.003245] Inode-cache hash table entries: 4096 (order: 3, 32768 bytes, linear)
[    0.003284] Built 1 zonelists, mobility grouping on.  Total pages: 16251
[    0.003286] mem auto-init: stack:all(zero), heap alloc:off, heap free:off
[    0.003448] SLUB: HWalign=64, Order=0-1, MinObjects=0, CPUs=1, Nodes=1
[    0.003456] Kernel/User page tables isolation: enabled
[    0.003513] rcu: Hierarchical RCU implementation.
[    0.003514] rcu:     RCU restricting CPUs from NR_CPUS=8 to nr_cpu_ids=1.
[    0.003516] rcu: RCU calculated value of scheduler-enlistment delay is 10 jiffies.
[    0.003518] rcu: Adjusting geometry for rcu_fanout_leaf=16, nr_cpu_ids=1
[    0.003524] NR_IRQS: 4352, nr_irqs: 256, preallocated irqs: 16
[    0.003749] rcu: srcu_init: Setting srcu_struct sizes based on contention.
[    0.003756] clocksource: jiffies: mask: 0xffffffff max_cycles: 0xffffffff, max_idle_ns: 19112604462750000 ns
[    0.029933] Console: colour VGA+ 80x25
[    0.029941] printk: legacy console [tty0] enabled
[    0.030046] printk: legacy console [ttyS0] enabled
[    0.030087] ACPI: Core revision 20250807
[    0.030139] APIC: Switch to symmetric I/O mode setup
[    0.030430] x2apic enabled
[    0.030767] APIC: Switched APIC routing to: physical x2apic
[    0.032004] clocksource: tsc-early: mask: 0xffffffffffffffff max_cycles: 0x33dc9f3a29b, max_idle_ns: 440795320778 ns
[    0.032014] Calibrating delay loop (skipped) preset value.. 7195.82 BogoMIPS (lpj=35979120)
[    0.032142] Last level iTLB entries: 4KB 0, 2MB 0, 4MB 0
[    0.032146] Last level dTLB entries: 4KB 0, 2MB 0, 4MB 0, 1GB 0
[    0.032153] mitigations: Enabled attack vectors: user_kernel, user_user, SMT mitigations: auto
[    0.032157] Speculative Store Bypass: Mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl
[    0.032159] SRBDS: Unknown: Dependent on hypervisor status
[    0.032160] Spectre V2 : Mitigation: Retpolines
[    0.032161] ITS: Mitigation: Aligned branch/return thunks
[    0.032163] MDS: Mitigation: Clear CPU buffers
[    0.032164] Spectre V1 : Mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization
[    0.032165] Spectre V2 : Spectre v2 / SpectreRSB: Filling RSB on context switch and VMEXIT
[    0.032166] Spectre V2 : Enabling Restricted Speculation for firmware calls
[    0.032167] Spectre V2 : mitigation: Enabling conditional Indirect Branch Prediction Barrier
[    0.032170] active return thunk: 0xffffffff9f67bbe0
[    0.032181] x86/fpu: Supporting XSAVE feature 0x001: 'x87 floating point registers'
thos-r2:~#   apk info -a linux-thos
linux-thos-6.18.59-r2 description:
TierHive OS kernel (monolithic, KVM virtio guest only)

Still playing but I reckon I can get this to around 8MB, then this will be the template available on the free tier of TierHive 64mb, 250mb disk and a /28 instead of a /24

I am going to try and pull Devuan down to around the same levels as long as apk/apt work fairly reliably, I am ok with it, I have not really started on a BSD option yet, though I thought AlpineBSD was the answer to the problem, but it's too new, so we will see. I am leaning towards NetBSD based on the template build experience and also to entertain @WSS

But now I am gonna have a pork and cashew nut stir-fry!

davide

VPS Price Tracker in a nutshell. Every process out of the circle is unrelated to VPS Price Tracker.

AnthonySmith

I think that's all she can handle, Captain!

thos-r3:~# df -h
Filesystem                Size      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/root               957.7M     15.8M    937.8M   2% /
devtmpfs                 10.0M         0     10.0M   0% /dev
tmpfs                    10.6M     48.0K     10.5M   0% /run
shm                      26.4M         0     26.4M   0% /dev/shm
thos-r3:~# free -k
              total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:          54052        9404       39696          48        4952       42004
Swap:         48644           0       48644
thos-r3:~# apk update
TierHive OS 1.0 main [http://10.0.2.2:8090/release/v1/main]
v3.24.3-75-g173e5df045a [https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.24/main]
v3.24.3-79-gfa37588f053 [https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.24/community]
OK: 28670 distinct packages available
thos-r3:~# apk add nano
(1/3) Installing ncurses-terminfo-base (6.6_p20260516-r0)
(2/3) Installing libncursesw (6.6_p20260516-r0)
(3/3) Installing nano (9.3-r0)
Executing busybox-1.37.0-r31.trigger
OK: 15.0 MiB in 37 packages

Custom Alpine spin (very custom) done. Devuan is next

WSS

@AnthonySmith said: Custom Alpine spin (very custom) done. Devuan is next

So it just takes a few years of burnout before you decide to come back guns blazing, huh? I'd be interested to see you get it installed and functional with apt below 96MB, because it was difficult under the 5.0 release. Not impossible, but OOM was very unhappy with you doing much of anything with a semi-stripped kernel.

AnthonySmith

root@devuan-r2:~# df -h
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/root       238M  104M  133M  44% /
devtmpfs         25M     0   25M   0% /dev
tmpfs           5.3M   24K  5.3M   1% /run
tmpfs           5.0M     0  5.0M   0% /run/lock
tmpfs            11M     0   11M   0% /dev/shm

root@devuan-r2:~# free -m
               total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:              52          11          21           0          22          41
Swap:            127           0         127

root@devuan-r2:~# apt update
Ign:1 https://thos.tierhive.com/devuan excalibur InRelease
Get:2 http://deb.devuan.org/merged excalibur InRelease [48.0 kB]
Ign:1 https://thos.tierhive.com/devuan excalibur InRelease
Get:3 http://deb.devuan.org/merged excalibur-updates InRelease [37.6 kB]
Get:4 http://deb.devuan.org/merged excalibur-security InRelease [40.8 kB]
Get:5 http://deb.devuan.org/merged excalibur/main amd64 Packages [9906 kB]
Ign:1 https://thos.tierhive.com/devuan excalibur InRelease
Err:1 https://thos.tierhive.com/devuan excalibur InRelease                                                                                                                                                                                 
  Could not resolve 'thos.tierhive.com'
Get:6 http://deb.devuan.org/merged excalibur-updates/main amd64 Packages [1116 B]                                                                                                                                                          
Get:7 http://deb.devuan.org/merged excalibur-security/main amd64 Packages [292 kB]                                                                                                                                                         
Fetched 10.3 MB in 14s (760 kB/s)                                                                                                                                                                                                          
All packages are up to date.    

root@devuan-r2:~# apt install telnet
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  adwaita-icon-theme  dbus-session-bus-common  fontconfig         gtk-update-icon-cache  libavahi-common-data  libdeflate0     libfreetype6             libjbig0         libsharpyuv0  libx11-data  libxml2
  at-spi2-common      dbus-x11                 fontconfig-config  hicolor-icon-theme     libbrotli1            libexpat1       libgdk-pixbuf-2.0-0      libjpeg62-turbo  libtiff6      libxau6      shared-mime-info
  dbus-bin            dconf-gsettings-backend  fonts-dejavu-core  libapparmor1           libdbus-1-3           libffi8         libgdk-pixbuf2.0-common  liblerc4         libwebp7      libxcb1
  dbus-daemon         dconf-service            fonts-dejavu-mono  libatomic1             libdconf1             libfontconfig1  libglib2.0-0t64          libpng16-16t64   libx11-6      libxdmcp6
Use 'apt autoremove' to remove them.

Installing:
  telnet

Installing dependencies:
  inetutils-telnet  netbase

Summary:
  Upgrading: 0, Installing: 3, Removing: 0, Not Upgrading: 0
  Download size: 188 kB
  Space needed: 379 kB / 20.5 MB available

Continue? [Y/n] y
Get:1 http://deb.devuan.org/merged excalibur/main amd64 netbase all 6.5 [12.4 kB]
Get:2 http://deb.devuan.org/merged excalibur/main amd64 inetutils-telnet amd64 2:2.6-3+deb13u3 [131 kB]
Get:3 http://deb.devuan.org/merged excalibur/main amd64 telnet all 0.17+2.6-3+deb13u3 [44.1 kB]
Fetched 188 kB in 2s (123 kB/s)       
debconf: unable to initialize frontend: Dialog
debconf: (No usable dialog-like program is installed, so the dialog based frontend cannot be used. at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/FrontEnd/Dialog.pm line 79, <STDIN> line 3.)
debconf: falling back to frontend: Readline
debconf: unable to initialize frontend: Readline
debconf: (Can't locate Term/ReadLine.pm in @INC (you may need to install the Term::ReadLine module) (@INC entries checked: /etc/perl /usr/local/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl/5.40.1 /usr/local/share/perl/5.40.1 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl5/5.40 /usr/share/perl5 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl-base /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl/5.40 /usr/share/perl/5.40 /usr/local/lib/site_perl) at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/FrontEnd/Readline.pm line 8, <STDIN> line 3.)
debconf: falling back to frontend: Teletype
Selecting previously unselected package netbase.
(Reading database ... 9584 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../archives/netbase_6.5_all.deb ...
Unpacking netbase (6.5) ...
Selecting previously unselected package inetutils-telnet.
Preparing to unpack .../inetutils-telnet_2%3a2.6-3+deb13u3_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking inetutils-telnet (2:2.6-3+deb13u3) ...
Selecting previously unselected package telnet.
Preparing to unpack .../telnet_0.17+2.6-3+deb13u3_all.deb ...
Unpacking telnet (0.17+2.6-3+deb13u3) ...
Setting up netbase (6.5) ...
Setting up inetutils-telnet (2:2.6-3+deb13u3) ...
update-alternatives: using /usr/bin/inetutils-telnet to provide /usr/bin/telnet (telnet) in auto mode
update-alternatives: warning: skip creation of /usr/share/man/man1/telnet.1.gz because associated file /usr/share/man/man1/inetutils-telnet.1.gz (of link group telnet) doesn't exist
Setting up telnet (0.17+2.6-3+deb13u3) ...

Linux devuan-r2 6.18.60-thos #3 SMP Sat Oct 31 21:47:46 UTC 2026 x86_64 GNU/Linux

root@devuan-r2:~# cat /proc/cmdline
BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-thos root=/dev/vda rootfstype=ext4 ro console=ttyS0,115200 console=tty0 quiet virtio_blk.queue_depth=32 swiotlb=1024 page_reporting.page_reporting_order=0

Devuan on 64mb (userspace is 11mb) ram and 250mb disk VPS

Few minor bugs to iron out but so far so good, ust using the glibc playbook instead of musl and compying most of the optimisations from alpine.

AnthonySmith

@WSS said:

@AnthonySmith said: Custom Alpine spin (very custom) done. Devuan is next

So it just takes a few years of burnout before you decide to come back guns blazing, huh? I'd be interested to see you get it installed and functional with apt below 96MB, because it was difficult under the 5.0 release. Not impossible, but OOM was very unhappy with you doing much of anything with a semi-stripped kernel.

^^

Forgot to quote/tag you.

I will test again with the zswap scaler mirroring the Alpine method instead of hard coding 128mband switch to ztsd instead of lz4 and retest, if its still running on 90% zswap then jobs a goodun

AnthonySmith

The programs included with the Devuan GNU/Linux system are free software;
the exact distribution terms for each program are described in the
individual files in /usr/share/doc/*/copyright.

Devuan GNU/Linux comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent
permitted by applicable law.
root@devuan-r3:~# free -m
               total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:              52          11          22           0          21          41
Swap:             47           0          47
root@devuan-r3:~# apt update
Ign:1 https://thos.tierhive.com/devuan excalibur InRelease
Get:2 http://deb.devuan.org/merged excalibur InRelease [48.0 kB]
Get:3 http://deb.devuan.org/merged excalibur-updates InRelease [37.6 kB]
Get:4 http://deb.devuan.org/merged excalibur-security InRelease [40.8 kB]
Ign:1 https://thos.tierhive.com/devuan excalibur InRelease
Get:5 http://deb.devuan.org/merged excalibur/main amd64 Packages [9906 kB]
Ign:1 https://thos.tierhive.com/devuan excalibur InRelease
Get:6 http://deb.devuan.org/merged excalibur-updates/main amd64 Packages [1116 B]
Get:7 http://deb.devuan.org/merged excalibur-security/main amd64 Packages [292 kB]
Err:1 https://thos.tierhive.com/devuan excalibur InRelease                                                                                                                                                                                 
  Could not resolve 'thos.tierhive.com'
Fetched 10.3 MB in 7s (1462 kB/s)                                                                                                                                                                                                          
All packages are up to date.    
Warning: Failed to fetch https://thos.tierhive.com/devuan/dists/excalibur/InRelease  Could not resolve 'thos.tierhive.com'
Warning: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.
root@devuan-r3:~# apt install telnet
Installing:                     
  telnet

Installing dependencies:
  inetutils-telnet  netbase

Summary:
  Upgrading: 0, Installing: 3, Removing: 0, Not Upgrading: 0
  Download size: 188 kB
  Space needed: 379 kB / 72.0 MB available

Continue? [Y/n] y
Get:1 http://deb.devuan.org/merged excalibur/main amd64 netbase all 6.5 [12.4 kB]
Get:2 http://deb.devuan.org/merged excalibur/main amd64 inetutils-telnet amd64 2:2.6-3+deb13u3 [131 kB]
Get:3 http://deb.devuan.org/merged excalibur/main amd64 telnet all 0.17+2.6-3+deb13u3 [44.1 kB]
Fetched 188 kB in 1s (356 kB/s) 
debconf: unable to initialize frontend: Dialog
debconf: (No usable dialog-like program is installed, so the dialog based frontend cannot be used. at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/FrontEnd/Dialog.pm line 79, <STDIN> line 3.)
debconf: falling back to frontend: Readline
debconf: unable to initialize frontend: Readline
debconf: (Can't locate Term/ReadLine.pm in @INC (you may need to install the Term::ReadLine module) (@INC entries checked: /etc/perl /usr/local/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl/5.40.1 /usr/local/share/perl/5.40.1 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl5/5.40 /usr/share/perl5 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl-base /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl/5.40 /usr/share/perl/5.40 /usr/local/lib/site_perl) at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/FrontEnd/Readline.pm line 8, <STDIN> line 3.)
debconf: falling back to frontend: Teletype
Selecting previously unselected package netbase.
(Reading database ... 6817 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../archives/netbase_6.5_all.deb ...
Unpacking netbase (6.5) ...
Selecting previously unselected package inetutils-telnet.
Preparing to unpack .../inetutils-telnet_2%3a2.6-3+deb13u3_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking inetutils-telnet (2:2.6-3+deb13u3) ...
Selecting previously unselected package telnet.
Preparing to unpack .../telnet_0.17+2.6-3+deb13u3_all.deb ...
Unpacking telnet (0.17+2.6-3+deb13u3) ...
Setting up netbase (6.5) ...
Setting up inetutils-telnet (2:2.6-3+deb13u3) ...
update-alternatives: using /usr/bin/inetutils-telnet to provide /usr/bin/telnet (telnet) in auto mode
update-alternatives: warning: skip creation of /usr/share/man/man1/telnet.1.gz because associated file /usr/share/man/man1/inetutils-telnet.1.gz (of link group telnet) doesn't exist
Setting up telnet (0.17+2.6-3+deb13u3) ...
root@devuan-r3:~# df -h
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/root       238M  125M  111M  53% /
devtmpfs         25M     0   25M   0% /dev
tmpfs           5.3M   24K  5.3M   1% /run
tmpfs           5.0M     0  5.0M   0% /run/lock
tmpfs            11M     0   11M   0% /dev/shm

64mb ram, 90% zswap scaler.

flips

@AnthonySmith said: I think it was @flips that was asking about it a while ago?
Enjoy!

Yay, Void and others! I'm looking forward to doing some testing when I get past a couple of deadlines here

WSS

@AnthonySmith said: 64mb ram, 90% zswap scaler.

I like debconf dropping back down to Teletype. I was hoping it'd fail through to card printer.

AnthonySmith

We have done some updates to the HAProxy system today a lot of it backend.

1. The backend checks now use a different method, and it's every 10 seconds now instead of every 2 minutes and it uses a better check method. Previously, we used curl; we've moved to the built-in HAProxy HTTP checks, which should be faster and more reliable.
2. We have made it possible to add www. to the certificates and record for the backend for standard HAProxy backends (http mode)
3. We have deployed the framework only for TCP mode, but we need to update the UI workers to match our sandpit version to enable this (Monday/Tuesday hopefully)

In simple terms, it means we will soon be allowing full TCP mode passthrough so you can terminate your own SSL if you want. TCP mode will also support wildcard domains e.g. *.example.com, for http mode, we will only ever allow the FQDN (domain/subdomain) + www. as an optional extra due to MITM attack security concerns.

This is also going to enable similar options on static hosting, not all locations will support TCP mode right away but hopefully they all will eventually.

This was being saved for BETA but there are some other things we wanted to improve and it made sense to make it all part of this bit of work.

Additionally there have been a few UI/UX tweaks, changing your backend options just edits now instead of starting over and you also get to pick your own connection check method that works best for you as a lot of go and container based apps and monitoring stuff does not actually give an http response code from the natural webroot.

This also makes real failover more predictable based on response codes rather than (as well as) total outage and <30 seconds in most cases instead of up to 5 minutes.

Further updates to follow on this as we add the last bits in.