
An IPv6-only VPS that costs less - amybe
https://www.gandi.net/news/en/2013-11-27/1166-ipv6-only_servers/
======
dagw
Sounds like an interesting solution for back end servers and compute clusters.
Your front end or control server has IPv4 to talk to the world, but all your
database and back end compute servers that only talk to the front end server
can be IPv6 servers to save money.

~~~
switch007
True, but private networking solves that issue too.

~~~
perlgeek
But notice that private networking is more complex. If you want to reach non-
public server, either you have to log in into a public server in the same
network and then open another connection, or you need VRF routing (ouch!).

With IPv6 you can just ssh into the box directly.

~~~
bradgessler
That's a lot of surface area you're exposing.

~~~
fulafel
Yeah, this unfettered inter-networking sounds like a really bad idea. If only
there was a way to control access besides fragmented addressing islands...

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Tobu
For reference, that shaves between 1 and 2€/month and makes a small instance
17% cheaper:
[https://www.gandi.net/hosting/iaas/prices](https://www.gandi.net/hosting/iaas/prices)

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eggsampler
It's also worth noting that a lot of the pay4botnet sites masquerading as
stress testing services can't/won't do ipv6, which offers slightly more
availability with ipv6 linked or dual-stack services - at least for now.

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JoshGlazebrook
Unrelated to the ipv6 subject, but does anyone else just find the whole
concept of "credits" that gandi is using absolutely irritating?

I know that it lists "or about $xx.xx per month" next to the credit cost, but
why in the hell even have the credits in the first place? It's easier to just
use the actual costs in the customer's local currency than have them try and
figure out what exactly a credit/"coin" is worth.

~~~
mz23in
This concept answers to many issues Gandi faced.

* Being "cloud-ish" and have a pay-as-you-go system * Computing a price to use a 256MB of RAM for 3 hours in real currency was too complicated (like, for example : 0.0000174€) * Having no surprise at the end of the month, as some hosting providers compute the global use and bill the consumption at the end of the month (you may have surprise) * Using credits, to create a new server, adding a new network interface, etc, you do not need to buy 'resources' like it was before * There are two interfaces : historic usage of credits by resources, display the credits consumption as what you use in real currency * No multiple expiration date by product/resource * ...

Many of those advantages are described here :
[http://wiki.gandi.net/en/iaas/references/billing/credits](http://wiki.gandi.net/en/iaas/references/billing/credits)

As usual, any enhancement/improvement is welcome :-)

~~~
idupree
I prepay for many services that are still able to list prices in real
currency:

[https://www.fastmail.fm/](https://www.fastmail.fm/)

[https://www.tarsnap.com/](https://www.tarsnap.com/)

[https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/](https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/)

The latter two do keep track of fractional charges. They deduct $0.01 from
prepaid credits once that much is owed. Since you accept multiple currencies,
this becomes a bit more complex but still doable. For example, let the user
choose the currency to display, or pick a single standard currency (euros?)
and use it as your units.

Tarsnap and NFSn choose to refund your prepaid credits if and only if you
close your account with them. Not every prepaid system lets you get your
prepayments back at all. I am fine with this: I am willing to pay a bit more
(prepayment without refund) in order to limit my liability to the amount I
intend to pay.

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eksith
One of the big reasons we didn't implement IPv6 on our domain servers
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6_brokenness_and_DNS_whitel...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6_brokenness_and_DNS_whitelisting)

Alternative:
[http://www.opendns.com/technology/ipv6/](http://www.opendns.com/technology/ipv6/)

~~~
AndrewDucker
So you didn't implement because of a problem that affects 0.03% of people
worldwide?

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eksith
At the time, 90% of our clients constituted that 0.03%. We're no longer in the
specialty networking/server scope.

~~~
stephen_g
What exactly led them to all having such misconfigured networks?

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eksith
Back around the early 2000's we were running something of an ad-hoc VPN of
dynamically connected servers. It was somewhat similar to the way Napster
worked with one central server and many connected nodes. These connections
relied on manual configuration, for the most part, and that did involve a fair
amount of tunneling.

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comice
We designed Brightbox Cloud with the scarcity of public IPv4 addresses in mind
since day one. Running out of addresses shouldn't be a surprise to anyone!
[http://brightbox.com/blog/2012/01/11/ipv6-servers/](http://brightbox.com/blog/2012/01/11/ipv6-servers/)

We're not as cheap as gandi though, heh :)

~~~
rsync
cheap enough to piggyback/freeload on their frontpage HN appearance...

~~~
comice
haha, indeed. I guess I must be the first to do that!

As a side note, I heard rsync.net have ipv6 too, and offer a special HN
discount!
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6766478](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6766478)

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samcrawford
I was going to post a link to Redstation, a UK hosting provider, whom offered
a discount of £5/month (approx 10% for their cheapest server) if you took IPv6
only. However, it seems that option has now been pulled sadly!

~~~
insertnickname
>who~~m~~ offered a discount

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radimm
Anybody has experience with Gandi VPS? Let's say compared to Linode or
DigitalOcean?

~~~
quasque
This was a while ago, but Gandi disabled my account - with no warnings - for
running a Tor node on one of my VPSes. I then had to send a copy of my
passport to eventually get it reenabled. The frustrating thing was that they
were also my domain registrar, so during that time I lost all access to my
domains as well.

I transferred my domains away after that and decided it wasn't wise to mix
services together due to this risk. So now I have domains with Tucows, DNS
with Hurricane Electric and VPS with a provider that only does VPS. And I
don't bother running Tor nodes any more.

~~~
mz23in
Maybe not for running a Tor node, but Gandi may have received complaints about
traffic on this node ?

Gandi allows any service to be run on its platform, abuse is not allowed as it
isn't on other provider.

Thus, they must do the necessary legal operations according to the law,
policies and their contract.

~~~
Spooky23
Not quite. Gandi has a morals clause in their ToS.

From the Gandi blog: ([http://www.gandibar.net/post/2007/01/11/Gandi-fights-
back-ag...](http://www.gandibar.net/post/2007/01/11/Gandi-fights-back-against-
domain-abuse))

    
    
      Domains registered with Gandi must be used in accordance with the rights of third parties (copyrights, intellectual property rights, personality rights, etc.), and current applicable laws and regulations. 
    
      For example, Gandi does not tolerate activity that is morally objectionable or that poses a threat to public order, that spreads Computer Contaminants (Viruses, Trojans, etc.), and/or that engages in fraudulent activity such as Identity Theft.
    

Some of these things are fairly broad and vague. There's the whole grey area
of speech that may or may not violate the rights of a third party. Then you
have the whole "public order" thing. Plus, you're potentially dealing with
French legal standards, which may be very different than the US standards that
I'm used to.

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eroded
> "RIPE, the organization in charge of delegating IP addresses in Europe,
> ended the distribution of new IPv4 blocks about a year ago."

This is not true. All new LIRs can still receive a /22 -
[http://www.ripe.net/lir-services/resource-
management/allocat...](http://www.ripe.net/lir-services/resource-
management/allocations-and-assignments/request-an-ipv4-22-from-the-last-8)

~~~
lloeki
Subject to conditions:

> This means that an LIR can only receive a _one-time_ /22 allocation (1,024
> IPv4 addresses) _if it can justify the need and already has an IPv6
> allocation_

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DROP_TABLE
Interesting deal, but where can I buy one? Can't seem to find a "buy now"
button anywhere.

~~~
flyou
[https://www.gandi.net/hosting/iaas/buy](https://www.gandi.net/hosting/iaas/buy)

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Fuxy
Yay some initiative. It's about time we had the option of saying screw IPv4.

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asdasf
Does anyone know if gandi uses ECC in their servers? This is possibly my
biggest problem with the VPS fad, nobody will give you a straight answer about
whether or not you can actually rely on them to not silently corrupt data.

~~~
flyou
I know for sure that Gandi use ECC in their servers.

~~~
asdasf
Do you work there or know someone who does? If so, can you get them to make
that explicit in their documentation?

~~~
flyou
Yes I work there. You can easily verify it.

~~~
asdasf
Can you get them to make that explicit in their documentation? I can't get the
higher ups to approve it without something official.

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louwrentius
My opinion: IPv6 is used by nobody, nobody cares about IPv6 except for us tech
nerds and in five years it will still be nowhere.

But still, nice if you want to try it out and test with it.

~~~
perlgeek
I know of several German ISPs (Kabel Deutschland, MNet) that don't even give
you a dynamic IPv4 IP anymore, but use Dual-Stack Lite (that is, IPv6, and
carrier-grade NAT to access public IPv4 addresses). Oh, and they limit the
ports (and thus connections) you can have open at a time, to something like
1000. I wouldn't want to have such a connection.

~~~
mAritz
I'm on Kabel Deutschland and have a static IPv4. Is that a regional thing
only?

~~~
perlgeek
Could be regional (I know it from Nürnberg area), or new vs. old customer.

