Free MetalVPS Intel i9-13900 Traditional Shell Account! Make Your Own VPSes!

Not_Oles · April 2023

Friendly greetings to all! 🌎🌍

What's New At MetalVPS?

MetalVPS seems to have a new EX101 Node running on an Intel i9-13900 processor at Hetzner's Falkenstein Datacenter in Germany.
You can create your own chroots, LXC containers, KVM VPSes, and much more from your traditional, command line shell account!
All Node resources are available for fair use.

Node Specs

root@fsn ~ # date
Mon Apr 10 01:19:20 AM UTC 2023
root@fsn ~ # cat /etc/debian_version 
12.0
root@fsn ~ # lscpu
Architecture:            x86_64
  CPU op-mode(s):        32-bit, 64-bit
  Address sizes:         46 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
  Byte Order:            Little Endian
CPU(s):                  32
  On-line CPU(s) list:   0-31
Vendor ID:               GenuineIntel
  BIOS Vendor ID:        Intel(R) Corporation
  Model name:            13th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-13900
[ . . . ]
root@fsn ~ # free -h
               total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:            62Gi       936Mi        61Gi       1.1Mi       545Mi        61Gi
Swap:           31Gi          0B        31Gi
root@fsn ~ # df -h . /altroot
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/md4        3.4T  1.9G  3.2T   1% /
/dev/md3         98G   24K   93G   1% /altroot
root@fsn ~ # gcc --version
gcc (Debian 12.2.0-14) 12.2.0
Copyright (C) 2022 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.  There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

root@fsn ~ #

Network Specs

1 Gbps unlimited, fair use
1 x IPv4
1 x IPv6/64

More About The Hardware

Processor: Intel® Core™ i9-13900 Processor
RAM: M324R4GA3BB0-CQK(DDR5 ECC) | DRAM | Samsung Semiconductor Global
NVMe Disks: SAMSUNG MZQL21T9HCJR-00A07 PCIe Gen 4

Who

MetalVPS is a project of @Not_Oles a/k/a Tom Miller a/k/a the clueless™ guy.

Why

Why not? It's fun to play with and learn about servers, operating systems, and the internet.
@Not_Oles uses very little of his MetalVPS servers' capacity. It's better to offer the extra capacity to others than to waste it.

Open Source

Thank you for using open source software at MetalVPS!

Congrats!

@NodeSeek用户123 wrote a tutorial here at LES (English) and on xlog.app (Chinese) about how to launch Ubuntu with Qemu and RDP and port forwarding.

These congrats are transferred from MetalVPS' wonderful, now-decommissioned Fremont Node. More congrats will be added as people begin to use the new Node.

Warnings!

Clueless™ administrator! 😀 @Not_Oles frequently messes up! 😱
@Not_Oles is especially clueless™ about Debian since he is a Debian noob. 🤗
Hey! This Node runs Debian sid unstable! 🤩 And, it's RAID 0! 😭
Sometimes trusted MetalVPSians might or might not get sudo. 🙈🙉🙊
MetalVPS has no billing panel and no server control panel. It's all command line until you install the GUI that you want. 🆕
MetalVPS has no onboarding and no knowledge base. ♒︎ If you want to make an LXC or KVM VPS, please be willing to research about how to do it on the command line.
Account delivery might take awhile! 😴
Accounts subject to cancellation at any time without advance notice! 💥
No warranty, to the extent permitted by applicable law. No service level agreement. Not for business use. Intended especially for computer learning and fun! 🤑
White Hat stuff only, please! No copyright violations, please. 👍
@Not_Oles tries to keep the system updated. Frequent maintenance reboots are guaranteed! 🌺
Please make your own redundant, offsite backups! It's easy to download or sync or clone your backup to a safe place. Please also make sure that you actually can restore from your backups! Please think of your MetalVPS account as ephemeral! It might blow up! We or you might reinstall the Node! 🤦‍♂️
MetalVPS.com is not a project of lowendspirit.com, lowendtalk.com, hetzner.com, or freevps.org. 👨‍💻
Other MetalVPSians can see your account name, some of the processes you are running, and much other information. So, please do not put confidential information on the server. 🤔

Installed Stuff

We're just beginning on this Node.
So far, gcc, git, lxc, qemu-kvm, zsh, and more are installed. Additional configuration is required, but MetalVPSians should be able to compile, to create unprivileged LXC containers, and to create KVM virtual machines.
Possibilities include installing Go, Plan9port, Docker and Nix. Plus code-server, oksh, Xv6, plan9port, LAMP stack. Plus more. If you want something, please let us know!

How To Sign Up

Please post in this thread. Only if necessary, please PM @Not_Oles or use the email on @Not_Oles profile.
If you have a new LES account, please introduce yourself in your post. Please tell us what you plan to do with your MetalVPS account. Please include your ed25519 ssh public key.

Support

Please post in this thread. Only if necessary, PM or use the email on @Not_Oles profile.
Additional communication channels might be available via Signal App, Discord, Jitsi, etc.

What People Are Saying

About MetalVPS

". . . [V]ery cool that MetalVPS is still a thing Thanks for providing this to the community, tinkering with servers is fun and a learning experience!"

"The permanent free shell account of MetalVPS is very fun!" ("MetalVPS的永久免费shell账号挺好玩的")

"This is really really cool."

"I enjoyed the section of the OP dedicated to complementary comments, including helpful links so they can be verified."

"MetalVPS used to be a high end provider, but it's becoming a sorority now."

"fun stuff indeed, appreciating the comfortable computing experience!"

"Liking my darkstar"

"Nice trial and results! Very interesting "

Metalvps recommended on OGF 🙈

"It just crossed my mind that I've been using your server for over half a year! It's been an amazing experience! . . . Your services deserve much more attention. "

"Wow pretty nice ! Congrats excellent options thanks for being a part of the community"

"the terms seemed exceptionally fair"

"Kernel Linux 5.11 is now in much better shape for AMD "

"Yes, please. I’ll take that."

"it's really quite dedicated. not all dedicated are the same."

"MetalVPS-AX101 has a reasonable price"

"really need a testing ground badly now especially with dedicated core"

"the fastest VPS I ever used"

"I've been using this one from him. Highly recommend! His support is really amazing!"

"10/10 metalvps recommended"

"very powerful"

"premium stuff"

"Grab it while the hotel still has vacant rooms."

". . . very passionate and enthusiastic about everything. Not all businesses are made this way and it's very easy to see when you interact with them. You are giving the right impression with this industry and it's wonderful to see."

"I think MetalVPS is designed in between a dedicated and a regular VPS. Some use case cannot fill the capacity of a dedicated but need more CPU than a regular VPS, and it makes sense to use MetalVPS in such situation."

About Not_Oles

"@Not_Oles is really a funfull and helpful grandpa!!"

"especially thanks @Not_Oles , He pointed out my problems and told me the correct way to share. He is a good guy."

"I'm not in need for any free vps at the moment, but thanks for what you're doing. If I had this chance few years ago, I think my life would be different."

"I did want to thank @Not_Oles for always being so friendly. Makes me smile seeing how nice you are to everyone here."

"You are a great person."

"Possibly the most polite and enthusiastic personality in the entire LE* world with a genuine interest that runs so deep he even set up a business exclusively catering for LES. as a regular content writer for LES his articles frequently top the charts in terms of most viewed (according to google)"

"Really, you're the best person I've known on the internet."

"we've found that good, in-depth technical articles tend to drive user interaction and new sign-ups on the forum. @Not_Oles's Proxmox articles are evidence of this."

"It was a pleasure for me to collaborate with Tom, he really knows what he's doing "

"Thanks again to @Not_Oles for valiant testing."

"you've brought a smile on my face countless times "

"Good luck with your new project! Happy to have you around here!"

"I always love how you come up with new ideas Good luck, mate!

"May you continue to learn and inspire others."

"he is a great guy!"

"he is the sweetest guy in LES .."

"Everybody loves @Not_Oles! "

"resplendent as the Sonoran Sun"

"god bless not_oles ^^"

"every time I visit les and see that profile picture, it brightens up my day."

"As for the new administrator, I nominate @Not_Oles."

"I would love to see @Not_Oles as a moderator or a bigger role."

"I would also support @Not_Oles as admin "

"He has limited technical skills, so that he's resorting to drama summaries[.]"

Thanks

Tom gets a lot of help from the friendly MetalVPSians and from many other friends.

Thanks again and best wishes! 🇺🇸🗽🇲🇽🇫🇮🇩🇪🏜️

Not_Oles · April 2023

root@fsn ~ # curl -sL yabs.sh | bash
# ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## #
#              Yet-Another-Bench-Script              #
#                     v2023-03-24                    #
# https://github.com/masonr/yet-another-bench-script #
# ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## #

Mon Apr 10 05:05:10 AM UTC 2023

Basic System Information:
---------------------------------
Uptime     : 1 days, 4 hours, 8 minutes
Processor  : 13th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-13900
CPU cores  : 32 @ 2000.000 MHz
AES-NI     : ✔ Enabled
VM-x/AMD-V : ✔ Enabled
RAM        : 62.6 GiB
Swap       : 32.0 GiB
Disk       : 3.4 TiB
Distro     : Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)
Kernel     : 6.1.0-7-amd64
VM Type    : NONE
Net Online : IPv4 & IPv6

IPv6 Network Information:
---------------------------------
ISP        : Hetzner Online GmbH
ASN        : AS24940 Hetzner Online GmbH
Location   : Falkenstein, Saxony (SN)
Country    : Germany

fio Disk Speed Tests (Mixed R/W 50/50):
---------------------------------
Block Size | 4k            (IOPS) | 64k           (IOPS)
  ------   | ---            ----  | ----           ---- 
Read       | 1.57 GB/s   (394.5k) | 2.37 GB/s    (37.1k)
Write      | 1.58 GB/s   (395.6k) | 2.39 GB/s    (37.3k)
Total      | 3.16 GB/s   (790.1k) | 4.77 GB/s    (74.5k)
           |                      |                     
Block Size | 512k          (IOPS) | 1m            (IOPS)
  ------   | ---            ----  | ----           ---- 
Read       | 2.85 GB/s     (5.5k) | 3.21 GB/s     (3.1k)
Write      | 3.00 GB/s     (5.8k) | 3.42 GB/s     (3.3k)
Total      | 5.86 GB/s    (11.4k) | 6.63 GB/s     (6.4k)

iperf3 Network Speed Tests (IPv4):
---------------------------------
Provider        | Location (Link)           | Send Speed      | Recv Speed      | Ping           
-----           | -----                     | ----            | ----            | ----           
Clouvider       | London, UK (10G)          | 931 Mbits/sec   | 930 Mbits/sec   | 19.8 ms        
Scaleway        | Paris, FR (10G)           | 932 Mbits/sec   | 926 Mbits/sec   | 21.3 ms        
NovoServe       | North Holland, NL (40G)   | 938 Mbits/sec   | 937 Mbits/sec   | 12.0 ms        
Uztelecom       | Tashkent, UZ (10G)        | 886 Mbits/sec   | 553 Mbits/sec   | 95.7 ms        
Clouvider       | NYC, NY, US (10G)         | 807 Mbits/sec   | 256 Mbits/sec   | 85.1 ms        
Clouvider       | Dallas, TX, US (10G)      | 860 Mbits/sec   | 364 Mbits/sec   | 123 ms         
Clouvider       | Los Angeles, CA, US (10G) | 823 Mbits/sec   | 219 Mbits/sec   | 145 ms         

iperf3 Network Speed Tests (IPv6):
---------------------------------
Provider        | Location (Link)           | Send Speed      | Recv Speed      | Ping           
-----           | -----                     | ----            | ----            | ----           
Clouvider       | London, UK (10G)          | 921 Mbits/sec   | 922 Mbits/sec   | 19.9 ms        
Scaleway        | Paris, FR (10G)           | 920 Mbits/sec   | 908 Mbits/sec   | 21.7 ms        
NovoServe       | North Holland, NL (40G)   | 925 Mbits/sec   | 924 Mbits/sec   | 12.1 ms        
Uztelecom       | Tashkent, UZ (10G)        | 874 Mbits/sec   | 586 Mbits/sec   | 96.0 ms        
Clouvider       | NYC, NY, US (10G)         | 866 Mbits/sec   | 388 Mbits/sec   | 84.9 ms        
Clouvider       | Dallas, TX, US (10G)      | 848 Mbits/sec   | 328 Mbits/sec   | 123 ms         
Clouvider       | Los Angeles, CA, US (10G) | 830 Mbits/sec   | 352 Mbits/sec   | 145 ms         

Geekbench 6 Benchmark Test:
---------------------------------
Test            | Value                         
                |                               
Single Core     | 3049                          
Multi Core      | 17551                         
Full Test       | https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/cpu/862441

YABS completed in 8 min 55 sec
root@fsn ~ #

cpsd · April 2023

Hi. I have no experience creating neither unprivileged lxc containers nor unprivileged kvm vps. But it will be fun if I can try

Thanks for everything.

ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAIOQ6a1fln9KCXRXdEJ7O6AUWm4f+wTF1mySLJLjsqFlk eddsa-key-20210809

Fritz · April 2023

Hi @Not_Oles would love to try this monster if allowed.

ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAIFzy9s592T8u+ErFKUO6VXYxfmSwJ28v3tnDnOXyT1uB

shallow · April 2023

I would love to learn about LXC containers and such. Can I hop on?
ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAILIPoyMH/NzIxi28yaqrLBB9VpkhLtL3bVYXycaL1NhW

ehab · April 2023

@shallow said:
I would love to learn about LXC containers and such. Can I hop on?
ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAILIPoyMH/NzIxi28yaqrLBB9VpkhLtL3bVYXycaL1NhW

shallow · April 2023

@shallow said: I would love to learn about VPS and such. Can I hop on?

ehab · April 2023

@shallow said:

@shallow said: I would love to learn about VPS and such. Can I hop on?

i can teach you other useful things.

Not_Oles · April 2023

@cpsd said:
Hi. I have no experience creating neither unprivileged lxc containers nor unprivileged kvm vps. But it will be fun if I can try

Thanks for everything.

ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAIOQ6a1fln9KCXRXdEJ7O6AUWm4f+wTF1mySLJLjsqFlk eddsa-key-20210809

HI @cpsd!

I provisioned your account! Welcome to MetalVPS!

Please try ssh [email protected] -p 42365 with your ssh key.

Your password is in a file in your home directory. The file is mode 600, which means that no other users can see the contents. Password login has been disabled on the Node, but you might need the password later. Please feel free to change your password.

Maybe you might want to start by adapting the easiest of the non-KVM and then the KVM Slirp recipes from this tutorial?. Please don't forget to check the additional references at the end of the tutorial.

On the server's Debian apt default qemu install I see

 root@fsn ~ # which kvm
/usr/bin/kvm
root@fsn ~ # ls -l $(which kvm)
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 18 Mar  5 17:09 /usr/bin/kvm -> qemu-system-x86_64
root@fsn ~ # ls -l /usr/bin/qemu-system-x86_64
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 18421696 Mar  5 17:09 /usr/bin/qemu-system-x86_64
root@fsn ~ #

From the above permissions, I am guessing that unprivileged users can use KVM. But I haven't tried it yet.

There may be a few configuration items still needed for LXC to work and for giving KVM and LXC instances their own IPv6 addresses and forwarded IPv4 ports. I believe Slirp should work as things are right now.

Please feel free to post any questions that you have. Please also post exciting news and frequent updates about what you are doing on the server. Hope you enjoy it! Thanks and best wishes!

Tom

Not_Oles · April 2023

@Fritz said:
Hi @Not_Oles would love to try this monster if allowed.

ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAIFzy9s592T8u+ErFKUO6VXYxfmSwJ28v3tnDnOXyT1uB

HI @Fritz!

Please try ssh [email protected]. Note that Debian doesn't seem to like capital letters in usernames, so I changed F to f.

Other stuff . . . approximately the same as I said to @cpsd above.

I hope you have fun on the server! Please post any questions and also exciting news and frequent updates about what you are doing on the server! Best wishes!

Tom

ralf · April 2023

@Not_Oles said:
From the above permissions, I am guessing that unprivileged users can use KVM. But I haven't tried it yet.

I think you're supposed to just add users you want to be able to use it into the group kvm (in /etc/group).

Not_Oles · April 2023

@ralf said:

@Not_Oles said:
From the above permissions, I am guessing that unprivileged users can use KVM. But I haven't tried it yet.

I think you're supposed to just add users you want to be able to use it into the group kvm (in /etc/group).

Yes, I've seen that before too, thanks! I'm unsure why, though, when neighbors without root or kvm group membership seem, from the permissions, to be able to execute the needed commands.

Of course, we will add the kvm group if it turns out to be needed.

Thanks for your help @ralf! Much appreciated.

Not_Oles · April 2023

@Not_Oles said:

@ralf said:

@Not_Oles said:
From the above permissions, I am guessing that unprivileged users can use KVM. But I haven't tried it yet.

I think you're supposed to just add users you want to be able to use it into the group kvm (in /etc/group).

Yes, I've seen that before too, thanks! I'm unsure why, though, when neighbors without root or kvm group membership seem, from the permissions, to be able to execute the needed commands.

Of course, we will add the kvm group if it turns out to be needed.

Thanks for your help @ralf! Much appreciated.

Interestingly, there already is a kvm group.

root@fsn ~ # grep kvm /etc/group
kvm:x:105:
root@fsn ~ #

But, why is the kvm group needed if non-root neighbors have executable permissions on /usr/bin/kvm and /usr.bin/qemu-system-x86_64?

root@fsn ~ # ls -l /usr/bin/kvm /usr/bin/qemu-system-x86_64
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root       18 Mar  5 17:09 /usr/bin/kvm -> qemu-system-x86_64
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 18421696 Mar  5 17:09 /usr/bin/qemu-system-x86_64
root@fsn ~ #

Thanks!

Fritz · April 2023

@Not_Oles said:

@Fritz said:
Hi @Not_Oles would love to try this monster if allowed.

ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAIFzy9s592T8u+ErFKUO6VXYxfmSwJ28v3tnDnOXyT1uB

HI @Fritz!

Please try ssh [email protected]. Note that Debian doesn't seem to like capital letters in usernames, so I changed F to f.

Other stuff . . . approximately the same as I said to @cpsd above.

I hope you have fun on the server! Please post any questions and also exciting news and frequent updates about what you are doing on the server! Best wishes!

Tom

Hi,
Will start to play with it. Thanks @Not_Oles !

ralf · April 2023

@Not_Oles said:
But, why is the kvm group needed if non-root neighbors have executable permissions on /usr/bin/kvm and /usr.bin/qemu-system-x86_64?

Anyone can execute the commands, permission is gated on being able to access /dev/kvm:

# ls -l /dev/kvm
crw-rw---- 1 root kvm 10, 232 Feb  3 15:36 /dev/kvm

ralf · April 2023

Interestingly, there already is a kvm group.

Yeah, you should just add the list of comma separated user names to that after the last colon.

Not_Oles · April 2023

@ralf said:

@Not_Oles said:
But, why is the kvm group needed if non-root neighbors have executable permissions on /usr/bin/kvm and /usr.bin/qemu-system-x86_64?

Anyone can execute the commands, permission is gated on being able to access /dev/kvm:
# ls -l /dev/kvm
crw-rw---- 1 root kvm 10, 232 Feb  3 15:36 /dev/kvm

"Anyone can execute the commands, permission is gated on being able to access /dev/kvm"

Yeah! Now I get it! Thanks!

root@fsn ~ # ls -l /usr/bin/kvm
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 18 Mar  5 17:09 /usr/bin/kvm -> qemu-system-x86_64
root@fsn ~ # ls -l /usr/bin/qemu-system-x86_64
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 18421696 Mar  5 17:09 /usr/bin/qemu-system-x86_64
root@fsn ~ # ls -l /dev/kvm
crw-rw---- 1 root kvm 10, 232 Apr  9 00:57 /dev/kvm
root@fsn ~ #

Neighbors now added to kvm group!

root@fsn ~ # usermod -aG kvm cpsd
root@fsn ~ # usermod -aG kvm fritz
root@fsn ~ # usermod -aG kvm notoles
root@fsn ~ # grep kvm /etc/group
kvm:x:105:cpsd,fritz,notoles
root@fsn ~ #

ralf · April 2023

@Not_Oles said:

root@fsn ~ # ls -l /usr/bin/kvm
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 18 Mar  5 17:09 /usr/bin/kvm -> qemu-system-x86_64
root@fsn ~ # ls -l /usr/bin/qemu-system-x86_64
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 18421696 Mar  5 17:09 /usr/bin/qemu-system-x86_64

BTW, if you use ls -lL /usr/bin/kvm it'll follow links and show you the data about the actual file.

Freek · April 2023

I was away from this forum for a while, but very cool that MetalVPS is still a thing Thanks for providing this to the community, tinkering with servers is fun and a learning experience!

cpsd · April 2023

@Not_Oles said:
I provisioned your account! Welcome to MetalVPS!

Thanks!

Maybe you might want to start by adapting the easiest of the non-KVM and then the KVM Slirp recipes from this tutorial?. Please don't forget to check the additional references at the end of the tutorial.

I was trying your instructions, Thanks. I coudn't find the the file start-qemu-kvm-slirp.sh so I wasn't able to follow that trick.
Moreover, I found that qcow2 file gets full when you update & try to install tmux / qemu. So I managed to increase the qcow2 file and move /usr & /var to two new partitions.

Finally I bypassed the guest's networking problem connecting through my VPN.

shallow · April 2023

@Not_Oles no dice for shallow?

ehab · April 2023

@shallow said:
@Not_Oles no dice for shallow?

off course NOt , for you , more like

shallow · April 2023

@ehab said:

@shallow said:
@Not_Oles no dice for shallow?

off course NOt , for you , more like

Oooh snap

ehab · April 2023

@Not_Oles can you please provide account for Shallow, his key is above.
Thanks a lot.

Not_Oles · April 2023

Hi @cpsd!

Thanks for your report! Looks like you did well for what was, as you said, your first time! Congrats! 🍾

@cpsd said: I was trying your instructions, Thanks. I coudn't find the the file start-qemu-kvm-slirp.sh so I wasn't able to follow that trick.

The entire start-qemu-kvm-slirp.sh file is in the linked article:

root@debian:~# cat start-qemu-kvm-slirp.sh
#!/bin/bash
# Start qemu with user mode "slirp" networking.
# Please see http://www.linux-kvm.org/page/Networking
# Default login "root". No password needed.

qemu-system-x86_64 \
-nographic \
-cpu host -enable-kvm \
-m 1G \
-hda /root/debian-sid-nocloud-amd64-daily.qcow2
root@debian:~#

Moreover, I found that qcow2 file gets full when you update & try to install tmux / qemu. So I managed to increase the qcow2 file and move /usr & /var to two new partitions.

May I please ask, how did you increase the size of the qcow2 file?

Finally I bypassed the guest's networking problem connecting through my VPN.

May I please ask how you did this?

Good luck with continuing adventures!

Best wishes!

Tom

Not_Oles · April 2023

@Freek said: [V]ery cool that MetalVPS is still a thing Thanks for providing this to the community, tinkering with servers is fun and a learning experience!

Thanks for your kind words! Your comment made my day, so I added it to the OP. Best wishes!

Not_Oles · April 2023

@ralf said:
@Not_Oles said:
root@fsn ~ # ls -l /usr/bin/kvm
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 18 Mar  5 17:09 /usr/bin/kvm -> qemu-system-x86_64
root@fsn ~ # ls -l /usr/bin/qemu-system-x86_64
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 18421696 Mar  5 17:09 /usr/bin/qemu-system-x86_64
BTW, if you use ls -lL /usr/bin/kvm it'll follow links and show you the data about the actual file.

root@fsn ~ # ls -l /usr/bin/kvm
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 18 Mar  5 17:09 /usr/bin/kvm -> qemu-system-x86_64
root@fsn ~ # ls -lL /usr/bin/kvm
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 18421696 Mar  5 17:09 /usr/bin/kvm
root@fsn ~ #

from man ls

-L, --dereference
      when  showing  file  information for a symbolic link, show information 
      for the file the link references rather than for the link itself

shallow · April 2023

@ehab said:
@Not_Oles can you please provide account for Shallow, his key is above.
Thanks a lot.

No dice.

Fritz · April 2023

Trying to follow the tutorial here.
Need to squeeze my brain.

c0untch0cula · April 2023

@Not_Oles

I'd like an account; I'm interested in learning about creating kvm VPSes.

Let me know what I need to do, thanks

ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAILUt0NSJah9AEOnk27sVO0pbfvrREdNqtIOCCU1xiNl/ JuiceSSH

cpsd · April 2023

@Not_Oles said:

root@debian:~# cat start-qemu-kvm-slirp.sh
#!/bin/bash
# Start qemu with user mode "slirp" networking.
# Please see http://www.linux-kvm.org/page/Networking
# Default login "root". No password needed.

qemu-system-x86_64 \
-nographic \
-cpu host -enable-kvm \
-m 1G \
-hda /root/debian-sid-nocloud-amd64-daily.qcow2
root@debian:~#

Oh! I was looking for a script inside the guest machine after installing the package. So i just tried to run tmux from host and launching the guest machine. But no luck when I ping any IPv4/domain. 100% packet loss.

May I please ask, how did you increase the size of the qcow2 file?

From host machine:
qemu-img resize debian-sid-nocloud-amd64-daily.qcow2 +10G

qemu-system-x86_64 \
-nographic \
-cpu host -enable-kvm \
-m 1G \
-hda /home/cpsd/debian-sid-nocloud-amd64-daily.qcow2

From guest machine:
root@localhost:~# fdisk /dev/sda

Welcome to fdisk (util-linux 2.38.1).
Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them.
Be careful before using the write command.

GPT PMBR size mismatch (4194303 != 25165823) will be corrected by write.
The backup GPT table is not on the end of the device. This problem will be corrected by write.
This disk is currently in use - repartitioning is probably a bad idea.
It's recommended to umount all file systems, and swapoff all swap
partitions on this disk.


Command (m for help): n
Partition number (2-13,16-128, default 2): 2
First sector (4194271-25165790, default 4194304): 4194304
Last sector, +/-sectors or +/-size{K,M,G,T,P} (4194304-25165790, default 25163775): 25163775

Created a new partition 2 of type 'Linux filesystem' and of size 10 GiB.

Command (m for help): w
The partition table has been altered.
Syncing disks.

root@localhost:~#

mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda2
mkdir /mnt/usr   
mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/usr
init 1
cd /usr
cp -axr . /mnt/usr
echo "/dev/sda2       /usr     ext4    defaults    0 0" >> /etc/fstab
cd /usr
root@localhost:/usr# rm -rf *

From host machine:

    cpsd@fsn:~$ ps -a
        PID TTY          TIME CMD
      10321 pts/0    00:00:32 qemu-system-x86
      10376 pts/1    00:00:00 ps
    cpsd@fsn:~$ kill -9 10321

Now you can repeat those steps for /var partition if you are interested in.

Finally I bypassed the guest's networking problem connecting through my VPN.

May I please ask how you did this?

First, you need to fix the ssh daemon:

apt reinstall openssh-server

service ssh start

Second, I had an important missing package (dhclient): apt install isc-dhcp-client

Third, you need a script at the boot process to connect to your vpn. I used one current file as template:

    cp /etc/init.d/sudo /etc/init.d/conectaVPN
    #! /bin/sh
    ### BEGIN INIT INFO
    # Provides:          conectaVPN

  start)
    echo "Starting script"
/bin/bash /root/iniciaServicio.sh
    ;;
  stop)

update-rc.d conectaVPN defaults
root@servidor5:~# vi iniciaServicio.sh
#!/bin/bash
sleep 60

/root/comandosConexionVPN.sh
--
chmod +x iniciaServicio.sh

Ready .

Last step:
as I wanted to try a desktop, I installed the x2go daemon and set a required hostname for the guest machine:

    hostnamectl set-hostname cpsdmetalvps
    apt-get install xfce4 x2goserver x2goserver-xsession

And I allowed PasswordAuthentication (in /etc/ssh/sshd_config)

Not_Oles · April 2023

@c0untch0cula said:
@Not_Oles

I'd like an account; I'm interested in learning about creating kvm VPSes.

Let me know what I need to do, thanks

ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAILUt0NSJah9AEOnk27sVO0pbfvrREdNqtIOCCU1xiNl/ JuiceSSH

Hi @c0untch0cula!

Welcome to LES! I like your fun username! As far as what you need to do is concerned, how about these suggestions from the OP?

@Not_Oles said: If you have a new LES account, please introduce yourself in your post. Please tell us what you plan to do with your MetalVPS account.

Your introduction could include who and where you are plus a link to your website if you have one, or maybe to your Github, or to your online presence in other wonderful places, HN, your publications as listed on arxiv.org, something else? Whatever. . . .

See you soon on the server!

Best!

Tom

Not_Oles · April 2023

@Fritz said:
Trying to follow the tutorial here.
Need to squeeze my brain.

Any questions? Best!

Not_Oles · April 2023

@cpsd Hey! Thanks for all the details! I want to read carefully everything you said, but it's getting late here. So, tomorrow. . . . Thanks again!

dosai · April 2023

@shallow said:

@ehab said:
@Not_Oles can you please provide account for Shallow, his key is above.
Thanks a lot.

No dice.

Sad.

shallow · April 2023

@dosai said:

@shallow said:

@ehab said:
@Not_Oles can you please provide account for Shallow, his key is above.
Thanks a lot.

No dice.

Sad.

Ya, what can you do? @Not_Oles is just ignoring my request at this point. Not sure why but that's up to him I guess. Not free for all after all. I'll stick to paid services not play services.

shallow · April 2023

I blame @ehab for jinxing me.

ehab · April 2023

@shallow said:
I blame @ehab for jinxing me.

maybe i had a part of it.
but thats what friends are for.

ehab · April 2023

don't worry we, can still knock on his door

@Not_Oles hey man, can you kindly give @shallow access to a car free shell account. His key was added earlier.

shallow · April 2023

@ehab said:
don't worry we, can still knock on his door

@Not_Oles hey man, can you kindly give @shallow access to a car free shell account. His key was added earlier.

Don't worry about it, he's not interested. He will just ignore. I'll never learn about linux containers now.

I will sleep well.

ralf · April 2023

@shallow said:
Ya, what can you do? @Not_Oles is just ignoring my request at this point. Not sure why but that's up to him I guess. Not free for all after all. I'll stick to paid services not play services.

@shallow said:
Don't worry about it, he's not interested. He will just ignore. I'll never learn about linux containers now.

I will sleep well.

Of course, I might be missing some context of friendly banter here, but normally if you're asking for a favour from someone it usually pays to be nice to them.

If this was me and I'd simply missed your message, seeing this kind of self-entitled response wouldn't make me rush out and help you, it'd make me wonder what you'd be like further down the line.

ehab · April 2023

@ralf said:

@shallow said:
what you'd be like further down the line.

terrorgen · April 2023

@ralf said:

@shallow said:
Ya, what can you do? @Not_Oles is just ignoring my request at this point. Not sure why but that's up to him I guess. Not free for all after all. I'll stick to paid services not play services.

@shallow said:
Don't worry about it, he's not interested. He will just ignore. I'll never learn about linux containers now.

I will sleep well.

Of course, I might be missing some context of friendly banter here, but normally if you're asking for a favour from someone it usually pays to be nice to them.

If this was me and I'd simply missed your message, seeing this kind of self-entitled response wouldn't make me rush out and help you, it'd make me wonder what you'd be like further down the line.

+1. Be nice to those providing play services at their own dime.

Encoders · April 2023

I want to join this free vps thing since it's been awhile I'm testing ipfs (they're better since cloudflare joins in), but eh there are no significant changes.

the last one i want to try something is when Route48 closing their services, so I tried replicated that one (even without /48). not really interested on opening it as public service however, just to sate a curious cat.

good luck i guess, those free things are fun if you're not an opportunist leech

Not_Oles · April 2023

@cpsd said: no luck when I ping any IPv4/domain. 100% packet loss.

Hi @cpsd!

From the above linked tutorial, "slirp does not support the ICMP protocol, and so ping doesn’t work."

Further down in the tutorial, it shows terminal output both with ping not working when the VM is launched by an unprivileged neighbor and then with ping working when the VM is launched by the root user.

May I please ask, how did you increase the size of the qcow2 file?

From host machine:
qemu-img resize debian-sid-nocloud-amd64-daily.qcow2 +10G

[ . . . ]

From guest machine:
root@localhost:~# fdisk /dev/sda

[ scary warnings ]

[ . . . ]

Glad fdisk worked despite those scary warnings! I heard that there is an automatic process for the image to increase its size. I heard something about a script inside the VM which is supposed to increase size automatically. Back on my former server, darkstar, some people reported the automagic increase worked for them, but it didn't seem to work for me. I haven't yet tried to chase down the details.

@cpsd said: First, you need to fix the ssh daemon:

FWIW, it's been awhile since I last set up a VM this way myself. I don't recall having trouble with ssh server. But the image might be different now.

@cpsd said: as I wanted to try a desktop, I installed the x2go daemon and set a required hostname for the guest machine:

Glad you are trying the desktop. I've not tried that recently. Maybe one needs to set additional options in the script that starts the VM in order to take the best advantage of the CPU's built-in graphics processor?

@cpsd said: And I allowed PasswordAuthentication (in /etc/ssh/sshd_config)

I wonder how strong a password is possible. And whether 2FA is available. Maybe one might even consider shutting down the VM when it is not in use?

Congrats on getting all this going! Best wishes!

Tom

Not_Oles · April 2023

I think of @ehab as my good friend from the Writers Group. I enjoy his posts. When @ehab posted here in this thread shortly after @shallow made his request, it seemed to me that perhaps my friend @ehab might have been trying to warn me to be careful of @shallow, whom I am just now getting to know.

When I went to look at @shallow's profile, I saw "About Me: Joe is shit. Eat shit lumber foot." Google didn't seem to have much to tell me about "Joe is shit. Eat shit lumberfoot."

I was and still am very confused.

Next there were additional posts from several people. And a PM too! @ehab and @shallow seemed possibly to take a view with which @ralf and @terrorgen seemed possibly to disagree.

Maybe everything that happened was a misunderstanding. Maybe I should instantly have given @shallow a MetalVPS account the first time that @ehab asked politely. But there remained the confusion in my mind from @shallow's profile's "Joe is shit. Eat shit lumberfoot." I wasn't sure how to talk about my confusion.

Thanks so much to @ralf and @terrorgen for always trying to be helpful! You guys are the best!

I really like LES! It's our friendly community! I am a happy guy! I think we all should be friendly and polite toward each other.

@shallow If you want to add anything to your request for a MetalVPS account, please go ahead and post again. I will happily consider whatever you say. But please realize that I might need a little time to think before I respond.

@ehab Thanks for your great writing and for your continually trying to help others! Thanks for participating in my threads! Respectfully, however, could you please consider taking it a little easier when you post in my threads?

Not_Oles · April 2023

@Encoders said:
I want to join this free vps thing since it's been awhile I'm testing ipfs (they're better since cloudflare joins in), but eh there are no significant changes.

the last one i want to try something is when Route48 closing their services, so I tried replicated that one (even without /48). not really interested on opening it as public service however, just to sate a curious cat.

good luck i guess, those free things are fun if you're not an opportunist leech

Hi @Encoders!

Thanks for asking to join MetalVPS!

Please tell us how we should understand your signature, which now says "Fuck this 24/7 internet spew of trivia and celebrity bullshit." I'm also confused about how to decide who is an "opportunist leech."

If you want to add anything to your request for a MetalVPS account, please post again. I will be delighted to consider more information about you, who and where you are, your command line experience, and what you want to do on the server. I will keep trying to give you an account.

Thanks again!

Best wishes and kindest regards,

Tom

Edit to add: An ed25519 ssh public key also is needed. Thanks!

cpsd · April 2023

Well I would like to share how I have prepared a a new VM with desktop using a rustdesk self hosted server https://rustdesk.com/docs/en/self-host/ which only allows metalvps's IP and mine. This is like Teamviewer/Anydesk.

First: create a new disk.

qemu-img create -f qcow2 test.qcow2 30G

Second: Download your favourite GNU/Linux distribution , in my case I will be using the mini.iso file from http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/bionic-updates/main/installer-amd64/current/images/netboot/

Third: start the VM opening a temporal VNC port (in this example, it will be :5959)

qemu-system-x86_64 \
-boot menu=on \
-m 2048 \
-cpu max \
-smp 4 \
-cdrom mini.iso \
-vnc 0.0.0.0:59,password=on \
-accel kvm \
-monitor stdio \
-hda test.qcow2

Fourth write in the prompt "change vnc password" and write one password.

Fifth: connect from your VNC viewer to fsn.metalvps.com:5959

Sixth: Install Ubuntu adding Xubuntu Desktop & Openssh server (optional)

Seventh: allow auto-login for your username
sudo mousepad /usr/share/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/60-xubuntu.conf
y add the third row:

[Seat:*]
user-session=xubuntu
autologin-user=username

Eighth: download the .deb file from https://rustdesk.com/ website and install it

sudo apt install ./rustdesk...deb

Ninth : add rustdesk to your boot up process

Open 'Settings Manager'
Select 'Session and Startup'
On the 'Application Autostart' click on the 'Add' button
/usr/bin/rustdesk

Reboot the VM and you can see what are your connection details (ID & password)

Now you can connect to your own Rustdesk server for better performance. And poweroff the machine.

Tenth: You can start this VM as a background process in metalvps host and you can connect to see how everything is working:

Bonus: as I have installed the openssh server in my guest machine, I can connect from outside too:

Not_Oles · April 2023

Wow! Thanks @cpsd! This looks pretty cool! I haven't tried RustDesk yet. Google helped me find the Github repo. Best! Tom

Fritz · April 2023

Nice one @cpsd !

Encoders · April 2023

@Not_Oles said:
Hi @Encoders!

Thanks for asking to join MetalVPS!

Please tell us how we should understand your signature, which now says "Fuck this 24/7 internet spew of trivia and celebrity bullshit."

It's a meme https://youtu.be/TTxAlkD-xDI?t=322

I'm also confused about how to decide who is an "opportunist leech."

worst case scenario in any of free services