The 'Digital Dust' Collection - What’s genuinely running on your idle nodes?

kako1talkkako1talk
in General

Looking at my spreadsheet today. I realized I have about 15 active services across different providers (NATs, small KVMs, storage blocks).

To be brutally honest, maybe 3 of them are 'mission critical' (DNS, Mail backup, Monitoring). The rest? Just digital dust collecting uptime stats because the deal was 'too good to pass up' at $4/year.

I'm curious about the OG crowd here: What is your ratio of 'Critical Infrastructure' vs. 'Toys I bought for the dopamine hit'?

And for those idle boxes, do you actually spin anything up, or are they just expensive ping targets at this point?

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Comments

  • tulipyuntulipyun

    They are exclusively used for timers generating new bills.

    B)

    Thanked by (7)oloke Otus9051 SocksAreComfortable MichaelCee Wonder_Woman terrorgen runbiscuit
  • NeoonNeoon OGContent WriterSenpai
    edited January 15

    15, wow you just me new here.
    Depends, NAT? I wouldn't buy any of it, most of the IPv4 yearlies are so cheap, why buy NAT?

    https://stats.neoon.net/monitor/639326985a0f1c8929a95192727bebd2
    Cost me 10$/m, will I ever let it go? No, will it ever stop being idle? only god knows.

    Generally, a mesh vpn on the rest.

    Thanked by (2)oloke Wonder_Woman

    Free NAT KVM | Free NAT LXC

  • kako1talkkako1talk

    @tulipyun said:
    They are exclusively used for timers generating new bills.

    B)

    Hah, sad but true. The billing cron job is the only process with 100% uptime. 😎

  • kako1talkkako1talk

    @Neoon said:
    15, wow you just me new here.
    Depends, NAT? I wouldn't buy any of it, most of the IPv4 yearlies are so cheap, why buy NAT?

    https://stats.neoon.net/monitor/639326985a0f1c8929a95192727bebd2
    Cost me 10$/m, will I ever let it go? No, will it ever stop being idle? only god knows.

    Generally, a mesh vpn on the rest.

    15 is just the number I admit to my wife. 😉 Regarding NATs vs IPv4 yearlies: It's mostly for the sport. Squeezing a functional service into a 128MB NAT container is a different kind of fun compared to just throwing money at a proper IPv4 slice. But keeping a $10/m box idle? That is true 'End Game' hoarding.

    Respect.

  • Otus9051Otus9051

    they idle, obviously
    buy more idlers so that the host server can rest!

    youtube.com/watch?v=k1BneeJTDcU

  • SocksAreComfortableSocksAreComfortable

    Uhh, like 8 or 9 of mine are wireguard nodes around the world. Another is used for a 3rd backup location (weekly encrypted offsite backups of important files). One hosts a small image sharing service that me and my friends use, which deletes all posts 30 days after uploads. The rest idle.

  • AuroraZeroAuroraZero Retired

    @SocksAreComfortable said:
    Uhh, like 8 or 9 of mine are wireguard nodes around the world. Another is used for a 3rd backup location (weekly encrypted offsite backups of important files). One hosts a small image sharing service that me and my friends use, which deletes all posts 30 days after uploads. The rest idle.

    Knitting more socks duh!!!!!

  • kako1talkkako1talk

    @Otus9051 said:
    they idle, obviously
    buy more idlers so that the host server can rest!

    Exactly. I'm not a hoarder; I'm a 'Stability Philanthropist'. I pay the provider so the CPU graphs stay flat and my neighbors get full performance. You're welcome! 🤝

    @SocksAreComfortable said:
    Uhh, like 8 or 9 of mine are wireguard nodes around the world. Another is used for a 3rd backup location (weekly encrypted offsite backups of important files). One hosts a small image sharing service that me and my friends use, which deletes all posts 30 days after uploads. The rest idle.

    WireGuard mesh is probably the single best justification for this hobby. It actually feels 'productive' to have exit nodes everywhere. The ephemeral image host is a neat idea too—perfect use for a low-storage slice.

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