Bcfg2 Virtual Private Server Planning
The idea here would be something between a full Virtual Private Server where the customer has root shell, and a web hosting company where the customer has a user shell.
Overview
- Customer would have access to user shell, but not console, root shell, or su. Make a few root-level commands (like shutdown -r now) available via sudo.
- Customer must make all system changes through Bcfg2,
instead of a root shell. This would be enforced by:
- Monthly rebuilds of the machine from scratch via Bcfg2 (home directories would be saved; LVM snapshots would be used to enable restore in case of issues)
- Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) with fines / discontinuation
- VPS systems are meant as servers; everything they need to run should come up on reboot, due to (a) monthly rebuilds and (b) use of pl_mom to automatically reset and then reboot the server if there are issues.
Plans
A quarter of all profits are donated to the Free Software Foundation. Discount of 10% to FSF members ( become a FSF member).
| Plan | RAM | Storage and Bandwidth/Month |
SVN Storage |
Price for First Month |
Renewal Increment |
| 5and1 | 32MB | 2GB | 100MB | $3 | 6 months |
| 6and2 | 64MB | 4GB | 200MB | $5 | 6 months |
| 7and3 | 128MB | 8GB | 300MB | $9 | 3 months |
| 8and4 | 256MB | 16GB | 400MB | $16 | 2 months |
| 9and5 | 512MB | 32GB | 500MB | $30 | 1 month |
| 10and6 | 1024MB | 64GB | 600MB | $56 | 1 month |
| 11and7 | 2048MB | 128GB | 700MB | $99 | 1 month |
$2/GB over the Bandwidth limit (will throttle or cut off at limit by request). Free, non-disruptive upgrades to all plans. High availability (HA with drbd and second system) included in price. Price includes shared IP with dedicated port ranges. Dedicated IP is one-time charge of $7.
Distributions
- Supported: gNewSense 1.1 (Ubuntu Dapper Drake with non-free parts removed); Ubuntu Dapper Drake at 20% markup.
- Best-effort: Any other FSF-approved 100% free/libre operating system if customer supplies Linux-VServer image. Debian Etch at 10% markup.
- Unsupported: CentOS 5.0 at 40% markup. OpenSuSE at 80% markup, plus customer must provide Linux-VServer image.
Marketing
- Initial focus on low-end market
- Market differentiation: (a) Bcfg2 (b) gNewSense (c) Politics (d) 25% of profits go to the FSF
- Consulting available at $60/hour, $30/hour for nonprofits I support. $30/hour additional on work that can not also be directed towards a FLOSS project.
- Eventually have easy-deployable sets of software via Bcfg2 (apache, trac, mediawiki etc.) (Tom's challenge)
- Less "rough" site: gnuvps.com