Free Linux server for a year

Khannie

Amazon AWS (the amazon cloud compute platform) are running a very nice deal at the moment. 1 free micro instance for a year. It's 1CPU with ~600MB of ram. Mine is running ubuntu 12.04. I installed LXDE and NX server on it = remote desktop to my virtual machine "in the cloud".

Don't forget to set yours up in their Dublin data centre. The default is somewhere in the US.

Tails142

You will pay for IO transaction fees on a micro instance because the only storage available to that type of instance is on their EBS system, micro instances don't have their own local storage.

I run a web server running a database on a micro instance and I end up paying about $5 a month on IO charges, if there was anyone else viewing the site the charges would quickly scale out of control so it is something to watch out for.

Google for more info.

Khannie

It says you get 1 million free IO's on the EBS. This is from last months report for me:

$0.00 per 1 million I/O requests under monthly free tier

Tails142

If you actually use it for something the IO's will start to rack up, every disk read and write performed on a micro instance is to EBS and it counts as an IO transaction.

Only affects the micro instance as the other instance types all have local storage.


So far this month for me:

$0.11 per 1 million I/O requests 30,112,616 IOs 3.31

I suppose depending on what you are doing your mileage will vary, just highlighting it as its something to watch out for. I reccomend you set up a number of billing alerts using CloudWatch so you can keep track of your escalating bill should it happen.

MadsL

If I used this for IP redirects for streaming would I go well over the IO charges?

harney

I take it that this is the server you are talking about?

http://aws.amazon.com/free/

There appear to be a few people using this as a proxy server or vpn solutoin to have an IP address in either Ireland or the states.

http://www.cheezy.com/?page_id=908

It looks like it might be an entertaining project. What are you using yours for, if you don't mind me asking?

harney

MadsL wrote: »

If I used this for IP redirects for streaming would I go well over the IO charges?

You would need to double check this, but it looks like you would only be charged for outbound bandwidth not inbound. That means you have the first 15GB free according to the Amazon link I posted, but again you should double check that in case I am incorrect.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/archive/t-1361701.html

Tails142

MadsL wrote: »

If I used this for IP redirects for streaming would I go well over the IO charges?

Not sure... it would depend on whether it has to read/write to the EBS volume which is acting as the hard drive, it may just use the ram so wouldn't count as an IO transaction. As mentioned you only get a certain allowance of free outgoing data too.

You should try it as AWS is fun to play around with, set a billing alert to send you an email when your total reaches 10 cent and if it goes off then you know you are being charged for something. Then you can just terminate the instance.

One thing I only realised recently is how cheap the spot instances are, that is worth checking out especially if you are interested in stepping outside of the micro instance type. Also there is the reserved instance market place where people who have bought reserved instances can sell them on for cheap if they realise they don't need them.

One thing to watch out for if you're considering buying a heavy utilisation reserved instance, you get charged for every hour within the term, which is either 1 year or 3 years, they don't state that clearly on the instance pricing page but it's in their FAQ section - could catch you out if you do get strapped for cash after reserving an instance and then don't feel like running it for a couple of months, you will still be billed for the hours.

Like I said, AWS is fun to play around with but there are a few pitfalls to watch out for.

Khannie

Tails142 wrote: »

If you actually use it for something the IO's will start to rack up, every disk read and write performed on a micro instance is to EBS and it counts as an IO transaction.

Good to know, cheers.

I am currently just using mine for a secure proxy (using ssh -D to connect to the amazon server).

I was thinking you could probably set up a ram disk for throwaway data if you were desperate to avoid costs (e.g. set up ram disk for your web server, copy contents from the hard disk at boot and then only read from RAM). I'm not sure if RAM requests constitute IO's because in theory you shouldn't hit the disk very often on a web server - once the kernel has cached the file in unused RAM it wont request it again unless something else overwrites that cache.

Khannie

Tails: I've been looking at other providers. Rackspace charge similar amounts for their micro instances but don't charge for I/O. Might be worth a look for you.

harney wrote: »

It looks like it might be an entertaining project. What are you using yours for, if you don't mind me asking?

Missed this before. Something similar for now. ssh -D gives you an instant proxy. I use compression with mine too (ssh -C -D <port> )

d31b0y

I got one of these up and running and I am currently hosting a CS:Source server on it. Seems to handle it no problem, apart from the very occasional lag spike, and no charges as yet.

Good call Khannie.

Khannie

Nice. That's a really good use for it. I'm starting to do a bit of ruby dev (just learning atm) on mine.

Stuxnet

Was thinking as google decided to EOL the wonderful Google reader service, and there is no other imo half decent web based rss reader out there bar newsblur who are now charging $24/36 a year for the pleasure of their service

would be a good idea to take newsblur source code which is freely available and roll your own rss server on the free ubuntu micro instance !!

possible ? any holes in my theory, Ive never done such a thing, but I have an idle 12.10 server running on amazon, might be a nice project

Khannie

Nothing preventing it. It's a full on linux box. You'd need to open up the ports etc. (I haven't looked at the firewalling yet because I haven't had to).

Stuxnet

Got Tiny Tiny RSS running on EC2 instance,

works great

Khannie

Nice. Was it much hassle to set up?

Hmnmm. I bet that's the kind of thing I could run on my phone if I had ubuntu on it.

Stuxnet

Aye was dead simple using a ppa for ubuntu

firstly assign your instance an elastic ip in the ec2 console,

then:

sudo apt-get install mysql-server mysql-client apache2 libapache2-mod-php5

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/tt-rss
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install tt-rss

select mysql as db type and apache2 as webserver when prompted

when asked for url of installation, i used " "my elastic ip xxxx"/tt-rss/"


then:

sudo nano /etc/tt-rss/config.php

Change "DISABLED" from "1" to "0"

sudo service tt-rss start

then on browser http://your elastic ip/your install directory

default login admin/password

profit :-)

d31b0y

Were you able to transfer your google reader feeds?

Stuxnet

Of course,

go to google takeaway, and download an archive of your reader subscriptions,

extract the zip, and inside you'll find an .xml file, import this into tiny rss, an all your subscriptions will be restored,

You can configure how often, you want your server to update the rss client, obviously if your using a free amazon tier, you might not want it updating every 5 minutes, I havent worked out yet what would be a safe limit, to remain "free",

Khannie

Stuxnet wrote: »

I havent worked out yet what would be a safe limit, to remain "free",

You could mount a small ramdisk as the data area and update it as often as you want then (within reason).