Hi All,
As most of you know, I donate a mirror to TDE. It costs ~USD100 / year [1]. Mine has ~18 months left, but it’s hard drive isn’t really big enough for what Slávek wants/needs long term. (It’s also completely overkill in terms of memory/cpu.)
I recently saw an article about NAT VPSes [2] whose prices are under $10 / year [3]. These, with some tinkering, can be setup to tunnel traffic to a home box (which could be running a VM to act as a TDE mirror).
VM’s can be ‘packaged’ such that they are one click imports (at least on Oracle VirtualBox). That would allow Slávek to be able to create it once and then any one of us could install it locally.
My graphics skills suckage, but something like:
mirror.ppa.trinitydesktop.org > NAT VPS > Your public IP (from ISP) > [Your router/NAT/'ISP thingy'] > Your home server > VM (on your home server)
I’ve used SSH tunnels for 20+ years, but we’d probably need Slávek or someone with more knowledge of traffic tunneling than me, to help with the full setup (as I think iptables is probably a better solution?).
# # #
Okay, why?
1) I think several of us have existing home hardware that has a spare ~2TB, can run a 1CPU/2GB RAM VM, and runs 24/7 already. 2) At ~$5 per year it’d be a very cheap way for TDE to have multiple mirrors that have the full space available Slávek wants.
Thoughts?
And a show of hands of people who’d provide a TDE mirror under something like this?
Best All, Michael
[1] Current offers are roughly 90/yr for VPSes w/ 48GB RAM, 720GB NVMe, 12 vCPU, 24TB transfer (triennial billing). https://www.ssdnodes.com/sale/aug-2022-offers/
[2] https://lowendbox.com/blog/what-the-heck-is-a-nat-vps-anyway/
[3] One offer: $4/year https://lowendtalk.com/discussion/180327/clearance-sale-nat-vps-at-cost-new-...
On Wed August 31 2022 13:13:15 Michael wrote:
Thoughts?
Hi Michael,
Here you go:
(1) I operate a VPS which is mostly used as a TDE mirror. It has 4GB RAM and 800GB disk space. Regular price is $138.36 but discounts are often available and I got this with a 50% discount for $69.18/annum which is reasonable. It's probably the third VPS I've used for a TDE mirror - every few years I search for better bargains.
(2) Separately and unrelated to TDE another VPS I operate has a forwarding mechanism such as you describe to a low-traffic home server. I use a combination of openVPN, iptables and proxy ARP - and an additional public IP. You might do it without renting an additional public IP but it would be complicated and require use of non-standard ports for conflicting services.
(3) The disadvantage to home-based mirrors is that every user download is an upload over your home bandwidth which is often limited. If I tried to run a mirror at home it would kill our streaming (Roku) but others may have more home bandwidth than we do.
--Mike
On 2022/09/01 07:00 AM, Mike Bird wrote:
On Wed August 31 2022 13:13:15 Michael wrote:
Thoughts?
Hi Michael,
Here you go:
(1) I operate a VPS which is mostly used as a TDE mirror. It has 4GB RAM and 800GB disk space. Regular price is $138.36 but discounts are often available and I got this with a 50% discount for $69.18/annum which is reasonable. It's probably the third VPS I've used for a TDE mirror - every few years I search for better bargains.
(2) Separately and unrelated to TDE another VPS I operate has a forwarding mechanism such as you describe to a low-traffic home server. I use a combination of openVPN, iptables and proxy ARP - and an additional public IP. You might do it without renting an additional public IP but it would be complicated and require use of non-standard ports for conflicting services.
(3) The disadvantage to home-based mirrors is that every user download is an upload over your home bandwidth which is often limited. If I tried to run a mirror at home it would kill our streaming (Roku) but others may have more home bandwidth than we do.
--Mike
A different alternative could be that we finally move forward with some sort of TDE organization (we had some talks about this long ago), then we can properly setup a donation link (which currently still goes to Tim) and then use them to setup additional VPS to act as mirrors or extra developer tools.
Cheers Michele
On Thursday 01 of September 2022 00:00:48 Mike Bird wrote:
On Wed August 31 2022 13:13:15 Michael wrote:
Thoughts?
Hi Michael,
Here you go:
(1) I operate a VPS which is mostly used as a TDE mirror. It has 4GB RAM and 800GB disk space. Regular price is $138.36 but discounts are often available and I got this with a 50% discount for $69.18/annum which is reasonable. It's probably the third VPS I've used for a TDE mirror - every few years I search for better bargains.
You have our thanks for providing the primary mirror as well as overseeing the other mirrors.
(2) Separately and unrelated to TDE another VPS I operate has a forwarding mechanism such as you describe to a low-traffic home server. I use a combination of openVPN, iptables and proxy ARP - and an additional public IP. You might do it without renting an additional public IP but it would be complicated and require use of non-standard ports for conflicting services.
To provide services within one public address, it would be possible to use a VPN connection (either the mentioned OpenVPN or Wireguard, which seems to be a very promising alternative) and do DNAT for ports of the required services to the home server.
(3) The disadvantage to home-based mirrors is that every user download is an upload over your home bandwidth which is often limited. If I tried to run a mirror at home it would kill our streaming (Roku) but others may have more home bandwidth than we do.
This is exactly the concern I would have with using "home mirrors". There are many home connections that are asymmetric => large incoming bandwidth, small outgoing. Providing a mirror consumes outgoing bandwidth, so it can cause problems on such connections.
However, I have an idea how the threat of bandwidth overload could be solved for accesses using http / https. If ports 80 / 443 were not DNAT to the home server, but served by a reverse proxy on the VPS (for example using apache, nginx or lighttpd), file caching could be used there, for example using squid-deb-proxy. This allows frequently used files to be served from the cache without having to download them again from the home server, and at the same time gives the ability to control the volume of files that will be stored on the VPS. This would require more effort to set up, but it could work.
In any case, it seems to be an effective solution to move forward with the creation of a TDE organization so that we can start receiving and manage donations and thus invest in infrastructure, as Michele mentioned. I am aware that this is a task that is waiting for me for a long time :(
--Mike ____________________________________________________
Cheers
On Thursday 01 September 2022 07:23:38 pm Slávek Banko wrote:
On Thursday 01 of September 2022 00:00:48 Mike Bird wrote:
On Wed August 31 2022 13:13:15 Michael wrote:
Thoughts?
Hi Michael,
Here you go:
(1) I operate a VPS which is mostly used as a TDE mirror. It has 4GB RAM and 800GB disk space. Regular price is $138.36 but discounts are often available and I got this with a 50% discount for $69.18/annum which is reasonable. It's probably the third VPS I've used for a TDE mirror - every few years I search for better bargains.
You have our thanks for providing the primary mirror as well as overseeing the other mirrors.
My thanks as well!
(2) Separately and unrelated to TDE another VPS I operate has a forwarding mechanism such as you describe to a low-traffic home server. I use a combination of openVPN, iptables and proxy ARP - and an additional public IP. You might do it without renting an additional public IP but it would be complicated and require use of non-standard ports for conflicting services.
To provide services within one public address, it would be possible to use a VPN connection (either the mentioned OpenVPN or Wireguard, which seems to be a very promising alternative) and do DNAT for ports of the required services to the home server.
Ah cool, so it's at least a fairly known thing to do.
(3) The disadvantage to home-based mirrors is that every user download is an upload over your home bandwidth which is often limited. If I tried to run a mirror at home it would kill our streaming (Roku) but others may have more home bandwidth than we do.
This is exactly the concern I would have with using "home mirrors". There are many home connections that are asymmetric => large incoming bandwidth, small outgoing. Providing a mirror consumes outgoing bandwidth, so it can cause problems on such connections.
The minimum Internet connection where I’m at is 300 Mbps (symmetrical). But, since no one replied to my question, I’m not real sure anyone on this list is even interested in spending $5 per year? Or has a home system that’s on 24/7?
IDK. This only seems worthwhile if people are willing to do it. I would, but going through all the setup work is hardly worthwhile for just one person.
However, I have an idea how the threat of bandwidth overload could be solved for accesses using http / https. If ports 80 / 443 were not DNAT to the home server, but served by a reverse proxy on the VPS (for example using apache, nginx or lighttpd), file caching could be used there, for example using squid-deb-proxy. This allows frequently used files to be served from the cache without having to download them again from the home server, and at the same time gives the ability to control the volume of files that will be stored on the VPS. This would require more effort to set up, but it could work.
I’ve not done any real research on these, but this is the spec of the NAT VPS I saw:
4GB SSD Disk 256MB DDR4 RAM 1 vCPU (Fair Use) /80 IPv6 + 20 IPv4 ports 500GB transfer @ 1Gbps; then unlimited at reduced speed
Can that even run the software needed to do any caching? (My original thought was just to be a straight pipe, since I was assuming whoever wanted to do it would already have adequate home bandwidth.)
If we get past the planning stage I was going to talk with the hosting company and tell what we were going to do, that way we’d not be in violation of their TOS.
In any case, it seems to be an effective solution to move forward with the creation of a TDE organization so that we can start receiving and manage donations and thus invest in infrastructure, as Michele mentioned. I am aware that this is a task that is waiting for me for a long time :(
{follow up tomorrow}
Best, Michael
On Thu, 1 Sep 2022 22:45:51 -0500 Michael mb_trinity_desktop@inet-design.com wrote:
The minimum Internet connection where I’m at is 300 Mbps (symmetrical). But, since no one replied to my question, I’m not real sure anyone on this list is even interested in spending $5 per year? Or has a home system that’s on 24/7?
You may be overestimating other people's connections. Mine is a cable connection that, in practice, gets no more than 30Mbps down, is probably not symmetrical (I'm not the person who gets the bills, so I've never seen the specifications), and is shared with the rest of the household.
I'd be willing to pitch in some money for hosting a mirror in the cloud or at a data center (if we can get the financials sorted out), but hosting anything here just isn't going to happen.
E. Liddell
On Friday 02 September 2022 04:59:37 E. Liddell wrote:
On Thu, 1 Sep 2022 22:45:51 -0500
Michael mb_trinity_desktop@inet-design.com wrote:
The minimum Internet connection where I’m at is 300 Mbps (symmetrical). But, since no one replied to my question, I’m not real sure anyone on this list is even interested in spending $5 per year? Or has a home system that’s on 24/7?
You may be overestimating other people's connections. Mine is a cable connection that, in practice, gets no more than 30Mbps down, is probably not symmetrical (I'm not the person who gets the bills, so I've never seen the specifications), and is shared with the rest of the household.
I'd be willing to pitch in some money for hosting a mirror in the cloud or at a data center (if we can get the financials sorted out), but hosting anything here just isn't going to happen.
E. Liddell
I am in a different boat, but it looks about the same as what E describes. Sometimes, indeed, I can get amazing speeds for download (nearly 2 mbps), but uploads are not so fast.
Also, it depends a lot on the time of day. Late at night, my machine is the fastest on the block; during daytime hours, when everybody and their dogs are online, it can slow to a trickle, and I get bumped offline sporadically, or sometimes even constantly, to the point where I just go offline and do something else.
Likewise, I am willing to donate, if it means that I get to keep using TDE as my desktop. (Seems like a good investment.) But we keep getting bogged down just about at this same point.
The best solution would seem to be, set up some kind of legal entity: a company, a non-profit, an org, to which we can all contribute as we are able, according to our talents or financial means.
One of those obstacles is just that we would have to choose somewhere to have a physical presence in the so-called real world; and that means that we would become subject to local laws and regulations, taxes and fees and fines and what-not.
If we go that route, then we need to choose the place wisely. Is there any nation that is run by enlightened sages?
Bill
On Thursday 01 September 2022 07:23:38 pm Slávek Banko wrote:
In any case, it seems to be an effective solution to move forward with the creation of a TDE organization so that we can start receiving and manage donations and thus invest in infrastructure, as Michele mentioned. I am aware that this is a task that is waiting for me for a long time :(
The last time I donated dollars was 5+ years ago and I never got any sort of response when I did it. The money did debit from PayPal, but for all I know it went into an account Tim abandoned and he never even received it.
Per the last time we all discussed this, a US non-profit was going to cost something like US $1,500(ish) to setup and an unknown amount per year in overhead. So, the USA isn’t an ideal location.
My thoughts, if Slávek has his own company, then just pay Slávek directly and let him pay what/who he needs to pay under that umbrella.
If I still had my full C Corp, I’d offer the same, but I dropped it and am now under a Sole Proprietorship. One of the downsides to Sole Proprietorship is that one of the US taxes is on your gross income, so nope, not going to pay taxes on monies that are just passing through...
The easiest at this point is to just pay our dev’s directly, but that can get ugly and create equity issues.
At least with the NAT VPS front end to home TDE mirrors, someone other than the home mirror person can pay for the VPS.
2 cents, Michael
Hello,
As everyone knows I donate space to a mirror, luckily I pay $95 for a dedicated server (Its OVH). Has 2x4TB HDD's and 128GB of RAM. I actually also provide a mirror for AlmaLinux, so I get some throughput.
I didnt even know VPS's even hit the same as I pay for a dedi, blows my mind lol.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Mike Bird" mgb-trinity@yosemite.net To: users@trinitydesktop.org Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2022 3:00:48 PM Subject: [tde-users] Re: TDE Mirrors for Everyone?
On Wed August 31 2022 13:13:15 Michael wrote:
Thoughts?
Hi Michael,
Here you go:
(1) I operate a VPS which is mostly used as a TDE mirror. It has 4GB RAM and 800GB disk space. Regular price is $138.36 but discounts are often available and I got this with a 50% discount for $69.18/annum which is reasonable. It's probably the third VPS I've used for a TDE mirror - every few years I search for better bargains.
(2) Separately and unrelated to TDE another VPS I operate has a forwarding mechanism such as you describe to a low-traffic home server. I use a combination of openVPN, iptables and proxy ARP - and an additional public IP. You might do it without renting an additional public IP but it would be complicated and require use of non-standard ports for conflicting services.
(3) The disadvantage to home-based mirrors is that every user download is an upload over your home bandwidth which is often limited. If I tried to run a mirror at home it would kill our streaming (Roku) but others may have more home bandwidth than we do.
--Mike ____________________________________________________ tde-users mailing list -- users@trinitydesktop.org To unsubscribe send an email to users-leave@trinitydesktop.org Web mail archive available at https://mail.trinitydesktop.org/mailman3/hyperkitty/list/users@trinitydeskto...
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Michael -
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Michele Calgaro -
Mike Bird -
Slávek Banko -
William Morder