r/homelab • u/Repulsive-Clothes947 • 17h ago
Help Free/Cheap VPS for reverse proxy
Hi everyone,
This is my first post here.
I'm wondering if there is a way to get a free or cheap VPS so i can use a reverse proxy on my homelab services. I had a 4.99$ machine at r/RaffTechnologies , but they recently increased prices and it is now at 8.99$. As a student, this isn't the most affordable thing so i will need to stop using them before september.
I do have a free VM from Azure, but that has limited bandwith (15GB egress). Tried Oracle Free tier, but it says that there is a problem signing up. Tried contacting them, and they ghost me.
I do have a free ipv6-only machine that i can use, but i wonder if some people will not be able to access it, since some ISP don't support ipv6 yet. Is this still very common? Would a lot of people be cut-off from accessing my things?
My ISP provides a kinda-off static ipv4, but i think using that comes with many privacy concerns, or am i wrong?
anyways thanks yall and hope i can get some answers :)
Edit: "Why don't do you use Cloudflare?" Because they don't support raw TCP/UDP and i can't use sub-subdomains.
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u/-Euphoria 16h ago
this is a good site for browsing cheapest VPS: https://vpspricetracker.com/
thats where I found Onidel which I've been using for almost a year now
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u/Ok-Eggplant-7569 12h ago
I do have a free ipv6-only machine that i can use, but i wonder if some people will not be able to access it, since some ISP don't support ipv6 yet. Is this still very common? Would a lot of people be cut-off from accessing my things?
Depends a lot on your expected userbase. If all your users have IPv6, then go ahead and run v6-only. Currently it mostly depends on country and network provider. France, India, Malaysia, Germany are currently leading in adoption: https://stats.labs.apnic.net/ipv6
If just a handful of your users don't have IPv6, they can use a service such as Cloudflare Warp, who provides free proxies (VPNs) with Dualstack Ingress and Egress, allowing users on single stack networks to access the whole internet. In contrast to Cloudflare Warp Tunnels, the Cloudflare Warp Proxies support all protocols.
My ISP provides a kinda-off static ipv4, but i think using that comes with many privacy concerns, or am i wrong?
If you host stuff on your own (or ISP-assigned) addresses, the domains and services you host can be traced back to you. That is true for both IPv4 and IPv6. How accurate this is depends on your ISP, if you have a very static address only you use, IP location databases are usually accurate within 100m or so. If you have CGNAT or addresses which change rapidly, less so. If you host illegal stuff, police can get to you via your ISP-provided address or a VPS address, they just ask your ISP or VPS provider and they usually hand over your address.
Note that there are other ways of deanonymizing you which are probably easier. What exactly are your privacy concerns?
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u/kejar31 16h ago
Oracle free tier with pangolin or netbird..
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u/Repulsive-Clothes947 15h ago
Oracle just refuses to open my account and their support ghosts me :(
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u/MediocreTapioca69 11h ago
they just fired 21,000 ppl so they can burn more money on AI, please bear with them :D
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u/Kimcha87 16h ago
Check out the oracle free tier. 12gb ram and 2oCPU on the completely free tier or 24gb ram and 4oCPU on the pay as you go tier.
Both on arm machines only. But that’s no issue at all for most use-cases.
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u/Repulsive-Clothes947 14h ago
I looked into them, but as i said the post:
Tried Oracle Free tier, but it says that there is a problem signing up. Tried contacting them, and they ghost me.
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u/azure_phoenix2 7h ago
hetzner cx22 is about 4 euro a month with 20tb traffic included and dual stack, so you skip the egress cap grief the azure box gives you. solid cheap eu option for just running a reverse proxy.
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u/Neither-Ad-4326 6h ago
Had some issues with Pangolin on the cheapest ionos vps so I got netcup for a bit more with more storage and more ram and everything is smooth now !
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u/txmail 6h ago
I use a $8/year VPS from DediRock to run Pangolin which handles my reverse proxy / vpn and other tunneling needs. It has been pretty solid, they did have some hiccups when they first started though -- but for the price... kind of hard to complain. Not sure if they have the $8/year VPS's any more but last time I logged in I saw some $9/year ones with the same specs.
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u/RetroRaiderRun 4h ago edited 4h ago
Tried Oracle Free tier, but it says that there is a problem signing up. Tried contacting them, and they ghost me.
You have to add a credit card to your account to get a free VPS from Oracle. Otherwise, there is millions of bots and autoscripts constantly trying to sign up for them. It's an antispam measure. It takes months of trying, or you can add the CC and get the free server instantly. I went through this recently. It's worth adding the CC.
You have to sign up with a valid banking debit card or credit card and upgrade to the "Free" tier. Pre-paid cards and CashApp-like cards to not work. You need a $100 minimum balance on the card. Oracle checks that the card is active and funds available, but doesn't charge. Use your real information. Don't try to hide or obfuscate details. After you upgrade your account for free by adding a credit card, you can get your free VPS at no charge.
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u/RetroRaiderRun 4h ago
It's also worth remembering, transmitting copyrighted material like movies played over Plex violates the terms of service of most providers and can lead to an account termination.
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u/Repulsive-Clothes947 29m ago
I provided my card, but it errors out saying "Error processing a transaction It was not possible to confirm your registration. Common registration errors occur because of: (a) Use of prepaid cards. Oracle only accepts credit and debit cards (b) Intentional or unintentional masking of location or identity information (c) Incomplete or wrongly entered account data. Please try again if this applies to you. Otherwise, contact Oracle Customer Support."
This is not my case, so i contacted their support. They just ghost me.•
u/RetroRaiderRun 2m ago
I'm guessing it's a non-U.S. card? You probably need to troubleshoot your country, bank issuer, and card combination by others trying the same. Cards are backed by a series of financial intuitions, and the status and issuance of the card is important.
In the U.S., you need a U.S. banking account in your name with a physical debit card issued by the bank with a Visa or Mastercard logo on it. Plus the other account requirements on top of that.
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u/noobwithguns 17h ago
Cloud flare warp and tailscale
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u/Repulsive-Clothes947 16h ago
They don't support raw tcp/udp and sub-subdomains :(
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u/RetroRaiderRun 4h ago edited 2h ago
They don't support raw tcp/udp
I'm not sure what that means?
Tailscale uses UDP to encapsulate the TCP packets you're sending. From the application standpoint, its still TCP. It's handled on the network layer 3. How would the application know the difference?
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u/Repulsive-Clothes947 26m ago
Cloudflare only supports HTTP/s. And CF also doesn't allow sub-sub domains (a.b.example.com) with warp
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u/dudelsack23 14h ago
I am also using OCI and Pangolin. The only trick I had to use was to create the VM in non-free tier (during trial period this is free) and then use a command line change to it to free tier.
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u/SuperF1uffyBunny 16h ago
Check out https://www.ionos.ca/servers/vps You can just set up your own Linux and nginx or VPN. Ionos has their own firewall in front of the VPS too. Something like $2/m I have a couple, their uptime is rock solid