OpenBSD in Amsterdam: VMs on vmd(8) servers | Hacker News Reader

OpenBSD in Amsterdam: VMs on vmd(8) servers

openbsd.amsterdam

98 pointsvetelko14 comments

The transparency is refreshing. The details for Server2 show some hardware info as well as the max number of VMs. I've never seen that before and wish other organizations would follow suit.

I also like that they publicly state their support for the OpenBSD Foundation. Given the transparency about their approximate userbase and donation amounts, one could even roughly predict how much they will donate per year. Among other things on the site this makes me trust them more, as it's not the info you'd expect from an untrustworthy person.

Good luck!

Yay! Thanks @vetelko.

Here is the onboarding guide: https://www.romanzolotarev.com/openbsd.amsterdam.html

I think booking a VM via Twitter/Mastodon is pretty weird. Why not e-mail?

There is order form already https://openbsd.amsterdam/contact.html

How do you handle release upgrades?

For as long as the release is supported you can use syspatch(8). They also appear to provide serial console access on request so you can perform a release upgrade via the recommended bsd.rd (RAMDISK) kernel method.

There's also the manual upgrade method, for an example of what that looks like, here's the guide for going from 6.2->6.3: https://www.openbsd.org/faq/upgrade63.html#NoInstKern

The key here is console access.

I have an OpenBSD router at home and the only negative part is about once every two years when I feel the need to catch up on the latest release.

Because then it needs a null modem cable and direct access.

So when someone is selling remotely managed OpenBSD VMs my natural question is how to do release upgrade.

You can do unattended upgrades using autoinstall(8). There is a handy script for patching bsd.rd with a configuration file for the update process: https://bitbucket.org/semarie/upobsd/src although there should not be anything to configure on most boxes (maybe you want to deselect the X packages for your router).

This looks pretty cool. Would this be a good choice for running a personal VPN?

Simple and straight to the point. I like it!

That's pretty cool.

Only Paypal :((

Doesn't PayPal offer its own gateway to credit cards? It used to.

Anyway it requires registration at paypal

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