A guide describing how to create your own (and most importantly free) cloud storage with a capacity of nearly 200GB. Step by step about how to get a free VPS from Oracle (4xOCPU, 24GB RAM and 200GB storage), install Docker on it, run Portainer, NGINX Proxy Manager and Nextcloud (with MariaDB database). In addition, it describes how to connect a domain via Cloudflare or FreeDNS:42 with SSL connection encryption.
They successfully charged my card for $1 like a dozen times as I tried and failed to get past their check. At the time I wasn't even interested in the free stuff, I wanted to pay for an ARM VPS, and their verification system just wasn't satisfied with something. After getting frustrated I tried to sign up for Hetzner instead and they allowed me to register and spin up a VPS without even having any payment information on file, they just trusted that I would pay the invoice at the end of the month. Funny how different the two companies treat this stuff.
I contacted them by email and was eventually able to create an account. Had to contact them again at another point where their system once again checks for something with a credit card and again rejected me. I can't remember exactly for what.
It worked eventually and I use the free tier server for small things, but of course it means I can't ever consider using their service for anything serious.
Different levels of trust can be placed in different providers for different types of data. Oracle is however at the bottom of the list with regard to trust.
Sufficiently different that you wouldn't backup your data at more locations? I don't think there is a single provider I'd trust that much, at least for data I really need to be still exist while I'm alive.
Yes, some paid ones that encrypt the data and have been in business for many years. They're not publicly listed in the stock market, and so they don't have to put up with the self-destructing demands of shareholders
Interesting, you're certainly more brave than me :) One of the places I used for backups been around for 2 decades, I still wouldn't trust them enough to store my only copy of something.
Famously, the most litigious and generally obnoxious to deal with enterprise software company on the planet. Or ale doesn’t have customers, they have hostages.
I find that Oracle has tremendous generosity on individual level. That's how people become familiar with their products and services.
It's when you're in production and particularly as a billion+ dollar company that screws get properly tightened!
But from the time I was a student in 90s to occasional dabbler now, I find their free / personal / individual / non-prod offerings to in fact be extremely generous.
This is a bit alarmist. They are one of the biggest web hosts in the world, whole companies run on their servers and cloud without issues. Accidents happen and you always need to have backups, ideally in another DC.
Wow, pairing a 9 year old processor with 64GB ram and 100Mbps. What are common use-cases that require much ram but not processing power, disk space or a higher bandwidth?
I apologize to all of you, but the interest in this blog post exceeded my expectations and unfortunately, due to the number of entries, the blog simply exploded and you can't enter the article...
And per many anecdotes on HN it's not just a "may" - I recall reading about people who had been prompted to upgrade to some paid tier, and upon declining their free tier account was closed.
Also good luck creating an account in the first place. Their shitty fraud checking partner keeps rejecting perfectly legit credit cards even after they've been verified with 3D secure check.
I do still get their email invitations to participate in various OCI webinars and developer conferences. Which is, you know, what I really wanted all along.
I was a happy "customer" of Oracle always free instances until they locked me out of my account. My instance is still running for now, but I can't change the firewall anymore.
for anyone else that does not see the expected blog page: https://web.archive.org/web/20241006115043/https://blog.toma...
my blog seems to be exploaded by the traffic… Sorry for that!
A guide describing how to create your own (and most importantly free) cloud storage with a capacity of nearly 200GB. Step by step about how to get a free VPS from Oracle (4xOCPU, 24GB RAM and 200GB storage), install Docker on it, run Portainer, NGINX Proxy Manager and Nextcloud (with MariaDB database). In addition, it describes how to connect a domain via Cloudflare or FreeDNS:42 with SSL connection encryption.
I can’t even register an account at Oracle.
I’ve tried many things and their 3rd party check refuses to consider me a good actor.
They successfully charged my card for $1 like a dozen times as I tried and failed to get past their check. At the time I wasn't even interested in the free stuff, I wanted to pay for an ARM VPS, and their verification system just wasn't satisfied with something. After getting frustrated I tried to sign up for Hetzner instead and they allowed me to register and spin up a VPS without even having any payment information on file, they just trusted that I would pay the invoice at the end of the month. Funny how different the two companies treat this stuff.
I contacted them by email and was eventually able to create an account. Had to contact them again at another point where their system once again checks for something with a credit card and again rejected me. I can't remember exactly for what.
It worked eventually and I use the free tier server for small things, but of course it means I can't ever consider using their service for anything serious.
thanks for the description
This is fine as a technical exercise, but trusting Oracle is a very bad idea for numerous reasons if your data is not mirrored or backed up elsewhere.
Trusting any single actor with your data is a bad idea, no matter if it's Oracle, Cloudflare or $CurrentInternetDarling.
Different levels of trust can be placed in different providers for different types of data. Oracle is however at the bottom of the list with regard to trust.
> Different levels of trust
Sufficiently different that you wouldn't backup your data at more locations? I don't think there is a single provider I'd trust that much, at least for data I really need to be still exist while I'm alive.
Yes, some paid ones that encrypt the data and have been in business for many years. They're not publicly listed in the stock market, and so they don't have to put up with the self-destructing demands of shareholders
Interesting, you're certainly more brave than me :) One of the places I used for backups been around for 2 decades, I still wouldn't trust them enough to store my only copy of something.
We are talking about nextcloud so backup of everything is on all of your devices with are sync to it
How come? Have you had a bad experience with Oracle?
If any long-term users (say 10+ years) have had a good experience with Oracle, I would like to hear from them!
VirtualBox.
Unless one of your employees downloaded the extension pack and now Oracle is after you.
Famously, the most litigious and generally obnoxious to deal with enterprise software company on the planet. Or ale doesn’t have customers, they have hostages.
Oracle is not known for its generosity.
I find that Oracle has tremendous generosity on individual level. That's how people become familiar with their products and services.
It's when you're in production and particularly as a billion+ dollar company that screws get properly tightened!
But from the time I was a student in 90s to occasional dabbler now, I find their free / personal / individual / non-prod offerings to in fact be extremely generous.
Oracle is the worst.
Sudden suspensions with no chance to appeal or explanation, regardless if you were a paying customer or just a free tier user. It's ridiculous.
I take it you've never worked with Oracle.
Seems like a lot of work (and risk) to avoid paying someone ~ $5 or less / month.
The machine has 24 GB of RAM, which is nowhere near that cheap in most places.
KS-A (https://eco.ovhcloud.com/de/): 64GB RAM, 480GB SSD, ~5USD/month
I would not trust OVH anything which not ephemeral, as there were couple of quite interesting incidents [0] in the last years.
0 - https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/analysis/ovhcloud-fire...
This is a bit alarmist. They are one of the biggest web hosts in the world, whole companies run on their servers and cloud without issues. Accidents happen and you always need to have backups, ideally in another DC.
Wow, pairing a 9 year old processor with 64GB ram and 100Mbps. What are common use-cases that require much ram but not processing power, disk space or a higher bandwidth?
That is their "budget" ("eco") line so the target is people on a budget or hobbyists so that's why you sometimes get odd or old hardware.
Sure, was just a bit surprised by the amount of ram, but I'm guessing they just had old ram from older high-end servers and put it to use.
Seems it was also just sold out, maybe because of your comment.
Yes, the sku that has a stock of 2 every couple of months.
Do you need anywhere near that much to run nextcloud?
Of course not but you can run way more stuff on this server in parallel to nextcloud
I apologize to all of you, but the interest in this blog post exceeded my expectations and unfortunately, due to the number of entries, the blog simply exploded and you can't enter the article...
That's why I refer to Webarchive: https://web.archive.org/web/20241006115043/https://blog.toma...
Blog is not working (too many redirects error). Website is perfectly fine (tomaszdunia.pl). Maybe it's just me because Pi Hole and stuff...
Nope my blog exploaded because of the number of entries :( Sorry for that!
Note that Oracle free instances may be deleted at any time for no reason.
And per many anecdotes on HN it's not just a "may" - I recall reading about people who had been prompted to upgrade to some paid tier, and upon declining their free tier account was closed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-brgkkjnHc
Also good luck creating an account in the first place. Their shitty fraud checking partner keeps rejecting perfectly legit credit cards even after they've been verified with 3D secure check.
They’ve scraped your biometrics and deem you as a non paying customer. They have no further value for you now.
This also happened to me.
I do still get their email invitations to participate in various OCI webinars and developer conferences. Which is, you know, what I really wanted all along.
"may" is that English word that non-natives learn too late that it actually means "will".
I remember when I first moved to England and my boss told me I may work on x and I thought that it is optional so I did something else.
I regularly use may in a way that doesn’t mean “will”. Sorry that you had a bad experience or whatever.
I think that's a British thing (I also worked in the UK for a while and got confused by this).
I was a happy "customer" of Oracle always free instances until they locked me out of my account. My instance is still running for now, but I can't change the firewall anymore.
You get what you pay for...
this seemed interesting before i read about oracle... Never. Trust. Oracle
Is anyone still using Docker?
I am, simply because I haven't "updated" my stack in a few years.
But are there any remaining arguments for using Docker instead of Podman (sudo-less docker alternative)?
Both docker and podman support rootless containers. Podman is in no way "better" or "more modern" as you suggest, mostly everyone still uses docker.
https://docs.docker.com/engine/security/rootless/
https://github.com/containers/podman/blob/main/docs/tutorial...
I still use Docker, any particular reason why I should switch to Posman except it being daemonless?
If you have a complex compose setup* I guess that docker is still a good value.
Overall going with the most popular option has various benefits in terms of compatibility and support.
*Either in terms of many complex services or in terms of services like traefik that rely a lot on listening to the docker socket
If you add yourself to the docker group you don't need to use sudo.
Because you are basically root then
Every 3rd party application that uses containers provide only instructions/support for docker.
(translated from Polish)
Welcome to blog.tomaszdunia.pl Upload all files to the root directory of your account.
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Yup sorry for that, blog exploaded because of the number of entries.