[HN Gopher] Linux boxes via SSH: suspended when disconected
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Linux boxes via SSH: suspended when disconected
Author : messh
Score : 67 points
Date : 2026-01-15 20:20 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (shellbox.dev)
(TXT) w3m dump (shellbox.dev)
| Liftyee wrote:
| This looks quite similar to exe.dev which was on here a while ago
| - anyone know how it compares?
| indigodaddy wrote:
| Pretty sure shellbox.dev has been around for at least 2-3 years
| though - EDIT nm they have a show HN from two days ago. I must
| be thinking of a similarly named/sounding service
| messh wrote:
| Maybe you mean keypub.sh? That is another project of mine
| with similar graphic design.
| messh wrote:
| I think exe.dev is subscription. In Shellbox.dev you have funds
| and pay very little when not connected
| Egor3f wrote:
| $36/mo for 2/4/50 VPS without public IP... Ok, I get the idea
| that the service is for non-regular use, but I think even $0.005
| per hour ($3.6/mo) of suspended state is too expensive. The same
| config in Hetzner is just $4.09/mo for 24/7 working VPS with
| public IPv4 address
| messh wrote:
| Hi, That is a good point actually. The suspended price has to
| be significantly lower than the alternative. I'll revise it.
|
| Still, there is the advantage of simplicity not having to deal
| with the web console etc. Some people may enjoy this
| nine_k wrote:
| The interesting part here is that the box is stateful, unlike
| a Lambda. You return literally to the point where you left
| off.
| einsteinx2 wrote:
| Yeah this is a cool idea but the pricing is way too high. For
| anything I would use this for I could just set up any VPS
| from any provider for cheaper and it's stateful in the sense
| that it's my own VPS and my files/applications/tmux
| sessions/whatever will be there the next time I SSH in.
|
| The UX here seems really nice, but after spending a couple
| minutes setting up the VPS, I essentially get the same UX
| (aka just ssh in and so stuff).
|
| I'd potentially be willing to pay some premium over a
| standard VPS, but certainly not a 10x premium...honestly
| probably not even 2x.
| eptcyka wrote:
| Have fun racing to the bottom. If I can get an unsuspended VM
| at 5$ a month, the suspendable one has to be significantly
| faster or significantly cheaper. Then again, take my gnawing
| with a boulder of salt for I will not be a customer. I have
| my own server that is running 24/7 already.
| nine_k wrote:
| Interesting to compare with Fly's sprites:
| https://sprites.dev/#billing
| messh wrote:
| One difference other than price is that sprites doesn't seem
| to use ssh
| nine_k wrote:
| Also, they cost less than a shellbox when unused (idle),
| and more when used.
| blackqueeriroh wrote:
| You can use ssh with a sprite.
| TurdF3rguson wrote:
| I think the comparison has to be with EC2 spot right? It feels
| like EC2 is the better deal, but maybe more of a pain to deal
| with their UI.
| kelnos wrote:
| [delayed]
| Imustaskforhelp wrote:
| This is fascinating idea. I created an idea like this on top of
| firecracker and custom golang ssh client to build something like
| this for my own personal use case (the abstraction part of
| pricing and how to connect it seemed the more difficult part for
| me atleast)
|
| What stack does this use underneath?
|
| Good luck with launch, this idea is similar to railway in terms
| of pricing model. I discussed about it a few comments back and I
| think its an interesting idea and we are seeing alternatives
| within such pricing model
|
| Also are you using some cloud provider itself or building it
| yourself, I'd be interested in so many details to discover
|
| Have a nice day and looking forward to ya response! Good luck
| with your project!
| messh wrote:
| Hi thanks for the interest!
|
| This is all written in python and the AsyncSSH package.
| Firecracker for VMs with memory mapped files for ram. Paddle
| for billing. Caddy as a reverse proxy for certificates.
|
| It works on top of very large bare metal instances.
|
| I'm thinking maybe open sourcing but it will take some more
| work on the code to make it publishable w/o embarrassing myself
| :)
| chwzr wrote:
| Do you do something similar to the modifications codesandbox
| has done to firecracker, regarding mmap ram? (They have
| multiple blogposts about it on their blog)
|
| Would love to chat about details there
| messh wrote:
| I have read about it, but currently using vanilla
| Firecracker w/o any memory optimizations. It is as simple
| as it gets for now
| Imustaskforhelp wrote:
| THanks for your response! as well
|
| I am interested in which bare metal instances from which
| provider are you using if I may ask since I had a similar
| idea (as mentioned before) and I wanted to deploy it on
| hetzner but I was always worried that hetzner's policy might
| be too harsh for it even though they are one of the cheapest
| options out there
|
| Which server provider did you end up using?
|
| Thanks once again for your in depth response, these are the
| things I come to hackernews for! cheers and looking to ya
| response
| messh wrote:
| Hetzner auction servers, not cloud
| Imustaskforhelp wrote:
| Hm I had thought the same! Interesting thanks for
| responding once again but what are your thoughts on the
| fact that someone can abuse the situation and your
| account might get banned and hetzner has a pretty strict
| policy in that
|
| When I wished to create something as such, this was the
| most major thing I was worried about. I am curious what
| your thoughts are on it and how are you managing it (the
| fact that anyone might abuse in your service which could
| then impact you and hetzner relations and they might
| block/restrict you)
|
| I have heard that hetzner requires you to respond in
| hours or similar. Like I am interested, did you talk to
| hetzner people (they are usually very kind and I love
| that about them) or not, because I remember asking some
| question to that in similar vein but I had gotten the
| answer that I am still responsible for what happens
| downstreams and that worried me
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > Note: The -O flag is required for OpenSSH 9.0+ to use legacy
| SCP protocol.
|
| Why isn't SFTP supported?
| messh wrote:
| WIP, this is still in MVP phase...
| mnsc wrote:
| Is it non-American all the way down?
| messh wrote:
| I was born in Argentina, so technically American, yes ;)
| messh wrote:
| If it is successful then the next region would be in the US
| gvldev wrote:
| I've been trying to come up with a hypothetical use case for
| this. I can't use this as a server without keeping an active
| session right? I wonder if you could get around this by sshing
| into itself from inside the primary session. Is that an edge case
| you've considered?
| messh wrote:
| This is a feature I want to implement: an option to keep boxes
| running while disconnected. Maybe with something like
|
| ssh shellbox.dev keepalive box1
| gvldev wrote:
| Maybe this and other future extended features could be
| configured via some host-accessible mounted conf.d? Otherwise
| if I forget to use that command on every login, I might just
| forget, logout, and go on thinking my server is still
| running.
| messh wrote:
| The feature can be discussed here:
| https://github.com/skariel/shellbox.issues/issues/3
| littlecranky67 wrote:
| Not sure about the security sandbox, but given that paddle.com
| (your payment provider) takes 5% cut you could consider accepting
| lightning (bitcoin layer2) payments. QR code generation for
| lightning invoice is instantaneous just as payment, and will cost
| less than 0.1% fee (payer pays fee anyway). But the security
| sandbox should be solid, else it will be used for illegal stuff.
| znpy wrote:
| > you could consider accepting lightning (bitcoin layer2)
| payments.
|
| uh? i lost interest in bitcoin a few years ago, did bitcoin get
| actually usable for payments ?
| solumunus wrote:
| But why? Genuinely want to know what one might use this for. I
| can imagine it would be cool for a remote dev environment but the
| selling point would have to be that it's far cheaper than the
| alternative.
| messh wrote:
| Simpler, easy to use, more enjoyable and fun are also valid
| reasons
| Kwpolska wrote:
| What's difficult to use in Hetzner or DigitalOcean?
| zinodaur wrote:
| Love this idea! Started building a version of it a while ago, but
| gave up because my resume time was too slow
|
| My job has their own DCs, but inexplicably hosts devboxes in EC2
| - an autosuspend feature for cost savings sounds awesome.
|
| Feature request: let me give you a Dropbox folder to persist/load
| my suspended vms from/to, that way i dont get charged for storage
| when not using it, and i can walk away whenever i want
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