BoltVM review

[kaniini]

Provider: BoltVM (http://www.boltvm.com)

Plan: “Lighting 1024”

Plan Location: ColoCrossing Los Angeles

Price: $24/year

Purchased: August 17, 2014

Virtualization stack: OpenVZ / Virtualizor / WHMCS module

Hardware Information

/proc/cpuinfo


processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 60
model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1240 v3 @ 3.40GHz
stepping : 3
cpu MHz : 3399.650
cache size : 8192 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 8
core id : 0
cpu cores : 4
apicid : 0
initial apicid : 0
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 13
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good xtopology nonstop_tsc aperfmperf pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx smx est tm2 ssse3 fma cx16 xtpr pdcm pcid sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic movbe popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx f16c rdrand lahf_lm abm arat epb xsaveopt pln pts dts tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid fsgsbase bmi1 hle avx2 smep bmi2 erms invpcid rtm
bogomips : 6799.30
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes : 39 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:

processor : 1
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 60
model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1240 v3 @ 3.40GHz
stepping : 3
cpu MHz : 3399.650
cache size : 8192 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 8
core id : 1
cpu cores : 4
apicid : 2
initial apicid : 2
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 13
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good xtopology nonstop_tsc aperfmperf pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx smx est tm2 ssse3 fma cx16 xtpr pdcm pcid sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic movbe popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx f16c rdrand lahf_lm abm arat epb xsaveopt pln pts dts tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid fsgsbase bmi1 hle avx2 smep bmi2 erms invpcid rtm
bogomips : 6799.30
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes : 39 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management: 
/proc/user_beancounters


Version: 2.5
uid resource held maxheld barrier limit failcnt
138: kmemsize 33448258 38010880 9223372036854775807 9223372036854775807 0
lockedpages 0 0 9223372036854775807 9223372036854775807 0
privvmpages 119909 153433 9223372036854775807 9223372036854775807 0
shmpages 728 2626 9223372036854775807 9223372036854775807 0
dummy 0 0 9223372036854775807 9223372036854775807 0
numproc 45 78 9223372036854775807 9223372036854775807 0
physpages 12460 262144 0 262144 0
vmguarpages 0 0 9223372036854775807 9223372036854775807 0
oomguarpages 22635 24229 9223372036854775807 9223372036854775807 0
numtcpsock 5 25 9223372036854775807 9223372036854775807 0
numflock 4 10 9223372036854775807 9223372036854775807 0
numpty 1 10 9223372036854775807 9223372036854775807 0
numsiginfo 0 39 9223372036854775807 9223372036854775807 0
tcpsndbuf 137472 778392 9223372036854775807 9223372036854775807 0
tcprcvbuf 81920 3519848 9223372036854775807 9223372036854775807 0
othersockbuf 42376 329912 9223372036854775807 9223372036854775807 0
dgramrcvbuf 0 4624 9223372036854775807 9223372036854775807 0
numothersock 31 63 9223372036854775807 9223372036854775807 0
dcachesize 28314224 28419492 9223372036854775807 9223372036854775807 0
numfile 467 690 9223372036854775807 9223372036854775807 0
dummy 0 0 9223372036854775807 9223372036854775807 0
dummy 0 0 9223372036854775807 9223372036854775807 0
dummy 0 0 9223372036854775807 9223372036854775807 0
numiptent 24 24 9223372036854775807 9223372036854775807 0
meaningless dd test:


root@madain:~# dd if=/dev/zero of=test bs=64k count=16k conv=fdatasync; unlink test
16384+0 records in
16384+0 records out
1073741824 bytes (1.1 GB) copied, 0.985682 s, 1.1 GB/s
Services running

• nginx + uwsgi stack ( http://htmlbin.dereferenced.org )
  

Maybe My $2/Month Hosting Budget Can Actually Get Something Reasonable

I was expecting much less when I purchased my BoltVM, considering it’s a 1 GB VPS offered at $24 yearly, but it seems that the DediCube crew have actually managed to get the magic right thus far.  It’s the standard low-end hosting experience: ColoCrossing and OpenVZ, but, they have differentiated themselves in a few ways — by going through a reseller with their own provider-independent space (Crissic) they manage to avoid the poor IP reputation that is associated with ColoCrossing’s IP blocks, and indeed, the only reason I knew that the servers were on the ColoCrossing network was from when I ran a traceroute.

I will spare the reader an in depth discussion about ColoCrossing’s Los Angeles network (mostly a Zayo and GTT blend), but because it is on ColoCrossing, there is of course no native IPv6 here.  And since it’s OpenVZ, there’s no way to tunnel either.  But who needs IPv6 anyway?  I mean, DigitalOcean just launched IPv6 support very recently and Moisey is clearly doing the Scrooge McDuck stroke through his money-filled bins of VC money.

I chose to deploy the Debian 7.6 64-bit template.  Unlike my previous review, it appears that the template is in fact, in working order.  Unfortunately Virtualizor provides templates that are preconfigured with a bunch of services I didn’t want, i.e. apache, sendmail and xinetd.  I think that providers should provide minimal templates with no pre-configured services — the pre-configured services here just get in the way at best and are a gaping security hole at worst.  If you deploy Debian here, you’ll want to remove these packages: xinetd, apache2.2-bin, apache2-doc, sendmail-bin and sasl2-bin.  Installing another MTA, such as ssmtp will remove sendmail-bin for you.  After removing all of these packages I was down to 12MB of memory use which isn’t horrible for Debian.

After this I installed the actual stack I wanted to run, i.e. nginx, uwsgi and mysql.  (Do not consider this an endorsement of nginx, as I think that nginx is not very good.  It just happens to be the only httpd with support for uwsgi natively.)  Memory usage was at 380 MB after the stack was installed and an application was deployed.

To ensure that the BoltVM VPS would be able to handle the load of increased traffic, I ran ApacheBench on the server.  With 20 in-flight requests at any time, the server was able to push out 130 requests per second, which isn’t too bad for a $24/year VPS.   A VMware VM on my OVH private cloud only gets approximately 300 requests per second, but has a lot more memory and double the CPU cores available to it.

In conclusion, the BoltVM VPS is a reasonable solution at the moment for someone who wants to deploy a small website with some level of performance guarantee on a cheap (i.e. $24/year) budget, as long as you are familiar with the downsides and security implications of OpenVZ and other container-based solutions.

For verification, you can see http://htmlbin.dereferenced.org/ which is an application deployed on this VM at the moment.

 

[Steven F]

We actually installed some minimal templates, but I haven't gotten around to adding them to the order form (you should see them in the control panel, though). Though, this was in the past 48 hours.

Thanks for the review. I'm hoping we hear some more positive stuff in a few months.

 

[Schultz]

ColoCrossing

 

[Steven F]

We just updated the site, got rid of a few typos, added the FAQ, fixed a few bugs. There's a few lorem ipsums, but we're working on the new DediCube site now, so those will get fixed tomorrow.

 

[thekreek]

I was waiting for you to add the quadranet location (no colo crossing IP's) in order to use the introduction offer you made. Hope you open it soon.

 

[Steven F]

I was waiting for you to add the quadranet location (no colo crossing IP's) in order to use the introduction offer you made. Hope you open it soon.

There is no exact ETA at this time. The special will end before we migrate, though. I'm hoping to find out more information next week. We are also not migrating to Quadranet. We will be migrating to another provider in the facility (on different floors) and simply using Quadranet bandwidth.

 

[aggressivenetworks]

Why are you migrating away from ColoCrossing? Just thought I asked but you don't have to say if its a company "secret"

 

[Aldryic C'boas]

Heh, no secret.  At this point, having CC affiliation is a major warning flag for serious buyers, and a typical death sign for a provider.

 

[aggressivenetworks]

Thanks! I guess they are pretty bad. I guess when you hoarding a lot of ips and 90 percent of them are blacklisted it is a problem. (90 percent is just me shooting from the hip, I might be wrong.)

 

[mojeda]

Thanks! I guess they are pretty bad. I guess when you hoarding a lot of ips and 90 percent of them are blacklisted it is a problem. (90 percent is just me shooting from the hip, I might be wrong.)

If you are wrong, you aren't wrong to assume so.

 

[DomainBop]

Heh, no secret.  At this point, having CC affiliation is a major warning flag for serious buyers, and a typical death sign for a provider.

Consider this a friendly reminder that CC complaints must be accompanied by proof and should only be made in the Cest Pit where they won't be indexed by search engines.  Please provide me with screenshots proving your allegations within the next 24 hours otherwise you will be banned for spamming and trolling.

Maaaarten

 

[Steven F]

Heh, no secret.  At this point, having CC affiliation is a major warning flag for serious buyers, and a typical death sign for a provider.

So I just noticed this. I know this wasn't directed at us, however it's still offensive.

We have been working extraordinarily hard to provide some pretty damn fine service and just because our VPS clientele are hosted with ColoCrossing, doesn't mean we're anywhere near death. In-fact, DediCube LLC (the company which we run under) is doing quite well and has begun to sell servers on hardware which we own 100%.

We have a lot of awesome things planned for the coming two or three weeks for BoltVM and being "affiliated" with ColoCrossing has nothing to do with anything.

 

[Aldryic C'boas]

You have my condolences for being so easily offended.  By a topical post from six months past.  That was already a risible response to a misinformed assumption.

 

[fixidixi]

I'm sorry but I dont understand this on your website:

How can two perfect locations be on:

• East
• central
• west

I might be wrong but thats 3 areas for me.. It's confusing..

 

Two Perfect Locations
With facilities on the east, central, and west coasts of the United States, DediCube can deploy servers where you need them.[..]

 

[Rapahel Nemeth]

BoltVM - is a scammers! You just lose your money!

 

[drmike]

BoltVM - is a scammers! You just lose your money!

Look a thread necro move with a one liner...


Why do you believe @Rapahel Nemeth that BoltVM is a scammer?