Free Crunchbits Bare Metal Server! -- "The Best Deal In Town!"

Not_Oles · January 5

Friendly greetings! 🌎🌍

Everyone's best friend and favorite Low End Provider, Crunchbits, granted MetalVPS Crunchy, a wonderful US 🇺🇸 dedicated server, free until November 8, 2024!

Free Offer

Usually I, @Not_Oles, have several bare metal servers. Typically I don't really use more than one bare metal server at any one time. Also, I put my long running services on VPSes. So, almost always, I have excess bare metal server capacity. It seems like a good idea to offer this excess bare metal capacity to our LES Community.

I started FreeVPS.org to give excess bare metal capacity to our Community in the form of free VPSes. Now, with Crunchy, I may be sharing an entire bare metal server with just one Community member. It also is possible that Crunchy might be shared among several Community members plus me. We will have to see what happens here in this thread. As of this writing, nobody else but me is using Crunchy.

If you want to figure out whether you could do what you want to do on Crunchy, please read the Warnings and the Terms of Service shown below.

How to Sign Up also is covered below, along with Pricing (Crunchy is free!), Support, and FAQ.

The Boss at Crunchbits said that MetalVPS is "literally the best deal in town!" Thanks to the Boss for his kind words and for Crunchy!

Best wishes! 🌎🌍

Tom

Crunchy Specs

CPU: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1245 v5 @ 3.50GHz
iGPU VPS passthrough possible, but not yet implemented
Hardware Cores: 4
Hardware Threads: 8
RAM: 64 GB DDR4 ECC
Disk: 4 x 2 TB SSD RAID 10 (3.7 TB available)
IP Addresses: 1 x IPv4/32; 1 x IPv6/128; 1 x IPv6/64; and 1 x IPv6/48 (HE TunnelBroker.net)
Bandwidth: 1 Gbps shared, unlimited, fair use
Location: Crunchbits, Liberty Lake, WA, USA 🇺🇸
Today's OS: 22.04.3 LTS (Jammy Jellyfish)
Current Term Expires: November 8, 2024

Warnings!

Forever Clueless™ administrator @Not_Oles has no "technical background" and only "limited technical skills. . . ." 😀 @Not_Oles frequently messes up! 😱
MetalVPS has no billing panel and no server control panel. There are no preinstalled VPSes or containers. It's traditional, command line terminal via ssh until you install whatever you want. 🆕
Sometimes trusted MetalVPSians might or might not get sudo, KVM group membership, etc. 🙈🙉🙊
MetalVPS has no onboarding and no knowledge base. ♒︎
Account delivery might take awhile! 😴
Not for business use! Intended especially for computer learning and fun! 🤑
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! Our server might blow up! 💥 At any random second @Not_Oles or maybe you might reinstall the Node! 😸
Other MetalVPSians might see your account name, the processes you are running, and much other information. So, please do not put confidential information on the server. 🤔

Terms Of Service

Be awesome! Be kind, gentle, friendly, positive, and polite!
White Hat only!
Not for business use!
Intended for education and fun!
Open source software only, both on MetalVPS and for connecting to MetalVPS!
No Service Level Agreement (SLA)!
Crunchbits TOS also applies!

Pricing

Crunchy is free until November 8, 2024.
Additional rented servers might need payment.

How To Sign Up

Please post here in this thread.
Please include
- your ed25519 ssh public key;
- links to your website, Github or other repo, other online profiles, etc.; and
- your use case for Crunchy.
- Please feel free to include additional items in support of your sign up request.

Support

Please post all new MetalVPS account requests and all support requests, comments, and feedback here in this thread. Please also post tutorials explaining your Crunchy accomplishments here in this thread or on their own, new LES threads.
LES PMs (personal messages) can be sent to @Not_Oles about items which need privacy.

More About MetalVPS!

MetalVPS is an indie project of @Not_Oles a/k/a Tom Miller a/k/a the Clueless™ guy. 🥰
MetalVPS is not a project of Crunchbits, Hetzner, Low End Spirit, Low End Talk, Low End Box, NodeSeek, or FreeVPS.org. 👨‍💻

FAQ

How did @Not_Oles get a free server from Crunchbits?

Are Custom ISOs and BSD supported for @Not_Oles at Crunchbits?

What People Are Saying

About MetalVPS

"MetalVPS . . . seems to have endless servers."

"@Not_Oles . . . thank you for providing machine for me to help me finish all the tests."

"I really enjoyed MetalVPS . . . I hope more people can learn together using MetalVPS."

"非常感谢Not_Oles分享免费的MetalVPS为大家使用！" "Big thanks to Not_Oles for sharing his MetalVPS for people to use!"

". . . [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

". . . a certain... finesse."

"@Not_Oles . . . is doing all kinds of interesting work and sharing it with others"

"Hi Tom "

"Tom, you're the best "

"I found it interesting that Tom still treats his free vps members like humans (it's really admirable). . . ."

"@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."

Thanks!

Thanks to Crunchbits for the wonderful Crunchy server! Even more thanks to Crunchbits for caring about every member of our wonderful Low End Community!

Tom gets a lot of help from the friendly MetalVPSians and from many other friends. Thanks to each and every one!

Edit History

Originally posted -- January 4, 2024

nightcat · January 5

hi Not_Oles,
May I have a shell for this server in a short period.
I always only use asia/US west network .I would like to learn much network information through this shell.
Crunchbits provide great vps plans but I haven't got it yet.

ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAIJkLa8m2eiRzgA6v0xFhHUsOzsucEAiZNrTsuWbSKRwg nightcat
github.com/cnjax/

Thank you . Best regards

tenpera · January 5

Thanks for offering.

Not_Oles · January 5

@nightcat said:
hi Not_Oles,
May I have a shell for this server in a short period.
I always only use asia/US west network .I would like to learn much network information through this shell.
Crunchbits provide great vps plans but I haven't got it yet.

ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAIJkLa8m2eiRzgA6v0xFhHUsOzsucEAiZNrTsuWbSKRwg nightcat
github.com/cnjax/

Thank you . Best regards

Hi @nightcat! Thanks for applying for a MetalVPS account! Please give me some time to consider your application.

subenhon · January 5

Is that a server with GPU?
If so,it Is Amazing!
May I get an account.
It is oportunity to learn more things

Not_Oles · January 5

@subenhon said:
Is that a server with GPU?
If so,it Is Amazing!
May I get an account.
It is oportunity to learn more things

Hi @subenhon!

Thanks for your comment!

Yesterday I went back to re-read one of your posts in a previous MetalVPS thread -- the post where you first got unprivileged LXC containers going. I was trying to do that again. It has been almost a year, and I had forgotten! I worked through it by myself, and then I went to compare with what you had done.

Crunchy seems to have a VGA display card and also an integrated GPU built into the E3-1245 processor. Crunchbits told me, if I understood right, that the integrated GPU processor will work with VPSes. But I don't yet know how to do that. So there is not a recent GPU card. I can see

ubuntu@crunchy:~$ ls /dev/dri
by-path  card0  card1  renderD128
ubuntu@crunchy:~$

If you still want a shell account, it's definitely possible. But please think about the fact that, here, we are considering possibly giving the entire server to just one person. Do you have a use for the entire server?

Could you please give me your ssh key again?

Best wishes!

Tom

subenhon · January 5

ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAICVtMvuzbWxXbMRC/OuqbWaGGGhAxdXoIlmmSsl6fE8Q subenhon

It is great for having the entire server if possible.
I just use the server for learning and tesing purpose, It is ok to give it to others if someone needs it more

Otus9051 · January 5

Thanks for the offer, however, I currently have no use-case for Crunchy, so I'll pass.

Not_Oles · January 5

@subenhon said:
ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAICVtMvuzbWxXbMRC/OuqbWaGGGhAxdXoIlmmSsl6fE8Q subenhon

It is great for having the entire server if possible.
I just use the server for learning and tesing purpose, It is ok to give it to others if someone needs it more

root@crunchy:~# adduser subenhon
Adding user `subenhon' ...
Adding new group `subenhon' (1002) ...
Adding new user `subenhon' (1001) with group `subenhon' ...
Creating home directory `/home/subenhon' ...
Copying files from `/etc/skel' ...
New password: 
Retype new password: 
passwd: password updated successfully
Changing the user information for subenhon
Enter the new value, or press ENTER for the default
        Full Name []: @subenhon
        Room Number []: 
        Work Phone []: 
        Home Phone []: 
        Other []: 
Is the information correct? [Y/n] 
root@crunchy:~# usermod -aG sudo subenhon
root@crunchy:~# mkdir /home/subenhon/.ssh
root@crunchy:~# chmod 700 /home/subenhon/.ssh
root@crunchy:~# echo ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAICVtMvuzbWxXbMRC/OuqbWaGGGhAxdXoIlmmSsl6fE8Q subenhon > /home/subenhon/.ssh/authorized_keys
root@crunchy:~# chmod 600 /home/subenhon/.ssh/authorized_keys 
root@crunchy:~# echo XXXXX > /home/subenhon/password
root@crunchy:~# chmod 600 /home/subenhon/password
root@crunchy:~#

Sending server IP addresses by PM.

Have fun! Please do whatever you want. You don't have to ask in advance. Don't worry about breaking the server -- it's super easy to reinstall. Maybe we will add someone else. Or maybe not! Any questions, problems, suggestions, progress reports, please just let us know by posting here. Thanks very much!

Otus9051 · January 5

@Not_Oles is BGP w Crunchy possible yet?

Not_Oles · January 5

@Otus9051 said:
@Not_Oles is BGP w Crunchy possible yet?

Hi! Sorry, I'm not up on the exact current status of BGP at Crunchbits. I think you might need to ask Crunchbits. If you do ask, please let us know what they say by posting here. Best! Tom

Not_Oles · January 5

@subenhon Sorry!!!!

root@crunchy:~# chown -R subenhon:subenhon /home/subenhon/.ssh
root@crunchy:~# chown subenhon:subenhon /home/subenhon/password 
root@crunchy:~# ls -alR /home/subenhon
/home/subenhon:
total 28
drwxr-x--- 3 subenhon subenhon 4096 Jan  5 05:45 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 root     root     4096 Jan  5 05:32 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 subenhon subenhon  220 Jan  5 05:32 .bash_logout
-rw-r--r-- 1 subenhon subenhon 3771 Jan  5 05:32 .bashrc
-rw------- 1 subenhon subenhon   10 Jan  5 05:42 password
-rw-r--r-- 1 subenhon subenhon  807 Jan  5 05:32 .profile
drwx------ 2 subenhon subenhon 4096 Jan  5 05:37 .ssh

/home/subenhon/.ssh:
total 12
drwx------ 2 subenhon subenhon 4096 Jan  5 05:37 .
drwxr-x--- 3 subenhon subenhon 4096 Jan  5 05:45 ..
-rw------- 1 subenhon subenhon   90 Jan  5 05:37 authorized_keys
root@crunchy:~#

ettige · January 5

HI, i only signup to this froums just for your offer.
I'm web programmer and Linux lover, get happy if you drops me one.
Check me out: https://github.com/ettige?tab=repositories
Edit: forgot to pass my public ssh key
ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAICpVcGJJ1VSXAHRfqfaimuhI5rkt5R1ruNAQFV1PGb6G strong@syStrong

Otus9051 · January 5

@Not_Oles said:

@Otus9051 said:
@Not_Oles is BGP w Crunchy possible yet?

Hi! Sorry, I'm not up on the exact current status of BGP at Crunchbits. I think you might need to ask Crunchbits. If you do ask, please let us know what they say by posting here. Best! Tom

@crunchbits bgp please

Not_Oles · January 5

@ettige said:
HI, i only signup to this froums just for your offer.
I'm web programmer and Linux lover, get happy if you drops me one.
Check me out: https://github.com/ettige?tab=repositories
Edit: forgot to pass my public ssh key
ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAICpVcGJJ1VSXAHRfqfaimuhI5rkt5R1ruNAQFV1PGb6G strong@syStrong

Hi @ettige!

Congrats on signing up here at LES! There are a lot of great guys here who know a lot and who will help you a lot.

I took a look at your Github and at your Vercel App. Looks like you are getting a great start on web design and web programming!

There is only one server available in this offer. So it's not like I can give one to you and another to someone else. Maybe we could put several people on the one server. We will see what happens.

What is your use case for Crunchy?

Best wishes! And, again, welcome to LES!

Tom

ettige · January 6

@Not_Oles said:

@ettige said:
HI, i only signup to this froums just for your offer.
I'm web programmer and Linux lover, get happy if you drops me one.
Check me out: https://github.com/ettige?tab=repositories
Edit: forgot to pass my public ssh key
ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAICpVcGJJ1VSXAHRfqfaimuhI5rkt5R1ruNAQFV1PGb6G strong@syStrong

Hi @ettige!

Congrats on signing up here at LES! There are a lot of great guys here who know a lot and who will help you a lot.

I took a look at your Github and at your Vercel App. Looks like you are getting a great start on web design and web programming!

There is only one server available in this offer. So it's not like I can give one to you and another to someone else. Maybe we could put several people on the one server. We will see what happens.

What is your use case for Crunchy?

Best wishes! And, again, welcome to LES!

Tom

Thank you so much @Not_Oles , Tom! I'm thrilled to be part of LES. Your encouragement means a lot. I'm currently diving into web design and programming, and I appreciate your offer regarding Crunchy. My main use case involves Docker, Node.js, and Nginx, ensuring seamless downloads and performance. Looking forward to the journey here! Best wishes to you too!

Not_Oles · January 6

@ettige said: Thank you so much @Not_Oles , Tom! I'm thrilled to be part of LES. Your encouragement means a lot. I'm currently diving into web design and programming, and I appreciate your offer regarding Crunchy. My main use case involves Docker, Node.js, and Nginx, ensuring seamless downloads and performance. Looking forward to the journey here! Best wishes to you too!

Hi @ettige!

The English skill is amazing for someone who might not be a native English speaker! Did you get some help writing this, or did you write it by yourself?

Best!

Tom

Not_Oles · January 6

Hello Everyone!

Root access to Crunchy has been given to @subenhon because, in previous MetalVPS threads, he has shared and discussed LXC command line code using features like Namespaces and Access Control Lists.

I am confident that @subenhon's use of Crunchy will enable more code learning and more code sharing!

I expect that MetalVPS will continue sharing bare metal servers. I look forward to making more servers available!

Thanks to everyone who asked for Crunchy! Thanks to @crunchbits for this wonderful server!

Best wishes!

Tom

ettige · January 7

@Not_Oles said:

@ettige said: Thank you so much @Not_Oles , Tom! I'm thrilled to be part of LES. Your encouragement means a lot. I'm currently diving into web design and programming, and I appreciate your offer regarding Crunchy. My main use case involves Docker, Node.js, and Nginx, ensuring seamless downloads and performance. Looking forward to the journey here! Best wishes to you too!

Hi @ettige!

The English skill is amazing for someone who might not be a native English speaker! Did you get some help writing this, or did you write it by yourself?

Best!

Tom

Hi, Again @Not_Oles.
Yes, I,m Not speaker so I need to always get some help to write things. Just to make sure that my message is clear and grammatically correct.

I found that offer is already given to someone else, maybe I get one in future offers.
I am grateful for your encouragement. Thank you!

thagoat · January 7

Free until my birthday. Neat!

Not_Oles · January 12

@subenhon Wanna reboot sometime before too long when you feel like it? Or I can do it if you want. Thanks!

Welcome to Ubuntu 22.04.3 LTS (GNU/Linux 5.15.0-91-generic x86_64)

  [ . . . ]

*** System restart required ***
Last login: Thu Jan 11 20:57:11 2024 from 187.189.238.2
root@crunchy:~# w
 02:33:41 up 7 days, 22:07,  3 users,  load average: 0.05, 0.10, 0.09
USER     TTY      FROM             LOGIN@   IDLE   JCPU   PCPU WHAT
root     pts/0    187.189.xxx.xxx  02:33    0.00s  0.01s  0.00s w 
  [ . . . ]
root@crunchy:~#

subenhon · January 12

@Not_Oles You can reboot today.
Thanks!

Not_Oles · January 12

@subenhon said:
@Not_Oles You can reboot today.
Thanks!

Done! Have fun!

itsmepaddi · January 13

Hello!
I am back after a few months. When I logged in to my account I suddenly found this post.
It's awesome to know that you got a free Crunchbits server until November.

I have a question. Does this server supports KVM?
Thanks!

Not_Oles · January 30

Hi @subenhon!

How is everything going?

Best!

Tom

Not_Oles · February 1

@subenhon ping

ExAjiMag · February 2

hi @Not_Oles , Maybe you already know me.
I don't know what lxc is so I learned to use lxc container.
Does this server support lxc container?

ssh public keys: ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAIL3t/tv6sW9TJdowG2krXNsUJalsIfMSQaITl+NNZO74 eddsa-key-20240202

github.com/ajiBal

Thank You.

Not_Oles · February 3

Hi @subenhon!

From January 4:

@Not_Oles said: Have fun! Please do whatever you want. You don't have to ask in advance. Don't worry about breaking the server -- it's super easy to reinstall. Maybe we will add someone else. Or maybe not! Any questions, problems, suggestions, progress reports, please just let us know by posting here. Thanks very much!

From January 30:

@Not_Oles said:
Hi @subenhon!

How is everything going?

Best!

Tom

From February 1:

@Not_Oles said:
@subenhon ping

Today is February 3:

Happy Saturday @subenhon! How's everything?

How should the server celebrate Lunar New Year? Maybe a Node OS wipe and reinstall would be a good way to celebrate?

Thanks and best wishes!

Tom

subenhon · February 4

@Not_Oles
Hi Tom,sorry for the late reply.
The server works fine, and I running a Windows10 Guest using qemu-kvm.
In order to get a better performace for the Windows10 Guest , I install virtio-driver in the Windows10 Guest ,then add "-vga virtio -net nic,model=virtio " to the Windows10 Guest start up command line.
The Windows10 Guest working fine at the beggining, but after a while it crash.
It seems than the Windows10 Guest does not work stable with the virtio-driver.

subenhon · February 4

@Not_Oles

@Not_Oles said: Happy Saturday @subenhon! How's everything?

How should the server celebrate Lunar New Year? Maybe a Node OS wipe and reinstall would be a good way to celebrate?

Lunar New Year，We are more accustomed to calling it the Spring Festival，which is "春节" in chinese
The spring festival is nearby,We go back to the hometown , reunite with family, and gather around a holiday meal on the Spring Festivals Eve, we call it "吃年夜饭". Maybe we should let the server go back to hist hometown and "吃年夜饭" with his family for celebrate Lunar New Year =) ,hahaha just kidding. The server works fine now ,we dont need to reinstall it.

Not_Oles · February 4

Hi @subenhon!

Here is what I see when I login.

Welcome to Ubuntu 22.04.3 LTS (GNU/Linux 5.15.0-91-generic x86_64)

 * Documentation:  https://help.ubuntu.com
 * Management:     https://landscape.canonical.com
 * Support:        https://ubuntu.com/advantage

  System information as of Sun Feb  4 03:40:10 AM UTC 2024

  System load:  0.14990234375    Users logged in:           1
  Usage of /:   4.1% of 3.66TB   IPv4 address for enp1s0f1: Redacted
  Memory usage: 14%              IPv6 address for enp1s0f1: Redacted
  Swap usage:   0%               IPv6 address for enp1s0f1: Redacted
  Temperature:  33.0 C           IPv4 address for lxcbr0:   Redacted
  Processes:    206

 * Strictly confined Kubernetes makes edge and IoT secure. Learn how MicroK8s
   just raised the bar for easy, resilient and secure K8s cluster deployment.

   https://ubuntu.com/engage/secure-kubernetes-at-the-edge

Expanded Security Maintenance for Applications is not enabled.

24 updates can be applied immediately.
To see these additional updates run: apt list --upgradable

Enable ESM Apps to receive additional future security updates.
See https://ubuntu.com/esm or run: sudo pro status


*** System restart required ***
Last login: Sat Feb  3 02:31:04 2024 from 187.189.238.2
root@crunchy:~#

What is our plan for updates and reboots?

Should we add a few more users or keep everything as it is?

I am thinking about installing a few things on the Node. For example a graphical desktop. Also a web server. I don't think either of these would cause any problem for you. Is this okay?

Hope we enjoy the Year of the Dragon here on Crunchy! In New York City there is a big parade for the 春节!

Free Crunchbits Bare Metal Server! -- "The Best Deal In Town!"

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