Oracle free VPS that I'm trying to use for Caddy reverse-proxy keeps locking up reddit / selfhosted ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Big-Finding2976 · 2023-11-23 00:55 I can SSH into my Oracle free VPS but after a while I find that the console is no longer working, and when I try to reconnect it doesn't respond. I can still ping it, but even logging in to the website and trying to "Launch Cloud Shell Connection" doesn't work, so it seems to be locking up completely after I SSH in, and I have to reboot it. I'm only trying to use it as a reverse proxy with caddy, but it obviously needs to be reliable for that. There's a few errors in the boot log, which I've pasted here, but I'm not sure if they're important. [Oracle boot log - Pastebin.com](https://pastebin.com/pL2hbBEZ) I've enabled Cockpit and the Services tab under that shows that kdump and SETroubleshoot failed to start. Should I just delete the instance and try creating a new one? I followed this guide to setup the required rules for the VPS instance, and to create the iptables rules in the VPS, and to create the IPV4 and IPV6 A and AAA records on Cloudflare. [How to Host a Website in Oracle Cloud Free Tier (yoursunny.com)](https://yoursunny.com/t/2020/OracleCloud-website/) then I followed Steps 2 and 3 in this more recent guide to create the caddy files [Install & Configure Caddy Web Server with PHP on Oracle Linux 8 (atlantic.net)](https://www.atlantic.net/dedicated-server-hosting/how- to-install-and-configure-caddy-web-server-with-php-on-oracle-linux-8/) but even before the VPS stops working the caddy server doesn't serve anything when I try to access it in my browser. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- cloudswithflaire · 2023-11-23 01:13 Do not delete the instance, being that it’s the free tier, you could be waiting weeks or months for another one to be made available for you. If you do end up needing to reinstall the OS, do it “in-place” on your current instance. There are a handful of ways you could accomplish this, [this one](https://blog.siddhant-shah.com/posts/technology/install-debian- on-oracle-cloud-netboot/) being my favorite and the one I always go to. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NikStalwart · 2023-11-23 01:17 This is not a question for /r/selfhosted. This is a configuration issue — that I am inclined to ascribe to installing too much unnecessary software — and would suggest directing to a more generalist tech support forum. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Big-Finding2976 · 2023-11-23 01:24 Thanks for the warning. Wouldn't Debian use more resources than Oracle Linux, which might cause further problems when the free instance only has 1GB RAM? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Big-Finding2976 · 2023-11-23 01:27 Lots of people here use Caddy as a reverse-proxy on a VPS to their self-hosted server (which is what I'm trying to do), so I don't see why posts discussing how to get that working are off-topic. I also don't know why you'd ascribe the problems I'm experiencing to installing too much unnecessary software, when all I've mentioned installing is Caddy and cockpit. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- cloudswithflaire · 2023-11-23 01:30 Ohh. You’re on *that* free server. I thought you had meant the big boy - 24gb memory, 4core ARM cpu free server. Yea I’ve never had a problem getting the little one deployed, probably could ignore my suggestion in this case. Just as fyi however, tutorial may have Debian in the title, but it’s on using [NetBoot.xyz](https://netboot.xyz) which can be used to install any one of dozens of distro that they maintain and offer for net installation. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NikStalwart · 2023-11-23 01:42 > I also don't know why you'd ascribe the problems I'm experiencing to installing too much unnecessary software, when all I've mentioned installing is Caddy and cockpit. Because cockpit is a completely unnecessary piece of software. If you are not capable of managing a server over SSH, this may not be the hobby for you. The second reason I suspect cockpit is that cockpit is a bloated, intrusive piece of garbage that, to be able to mange your server, needs to interfere with low-level system functions, which would be my guess why you are experiencing connectivity and boot issues. > Lots of people here use Caddy as a reverse-proxy on a VPS to their self-hosted server (which is what I'm trying to do), so I don't see why posts discussing how to get that working are off-topic. Because your post is not about "getting that working" but about troubleshooting a problem with, I suspect, has nothing to do with caddy and is a generic system (mis)administration task. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NikStalwart · 2023-11-23 01:43 You can also just swap out the boot volume to an instance. Create a new boot volume, mount it, install new OS on it, unmount, go into Instance settings, swap boot volumes, delete the old one. Even if you are at your 200GB cap, you won't be much for the extra usage. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Big-Finding2976 · 2023-11-23 02:02 You could have just said "Cockpit is a bloated piece of crap. Uninstall that and your VPS/Caddy will probably work fine." That would have been helpful to me and anyone else who's trying to use Oracle's free tier to create a reverse-proxy. Rather than making grumpy posts telling me I shouldn't be asking questions here, and I'm not clever enough to self-host a server. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Big-Finding2976 · 2023-11-23 02:13 I wish I had that! I'll see if there's a lighter distro that might work better than Oracle Linux, but I might just make life harder for myself if I change distro, as most of the guides about setting stuff up on the Oracle VPS will probably assume that I'm using Oracle Linux. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- cloudswithflaire · 2023-11-23 02:14 Everyone has that lol. Just a matter of getting one deployed 😋 I checked NetBoot has oraclelinux options as well. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Big-Finding2976 · 2023-11-23 02:14 Ah thanks. Yeah, that's much better than deleting the instance and creating a new one. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Big-Finding2976 · 2023-11-23 02:23 Oh yeah! I was only looking under the Speciality shape series, as that is what "Always Free" is listed under, but I see I can select the Ampere series and create a 4 core, 24GB instance. I'll see how I get on with the existing one for now though, as that will probably be sufficient for my reverse-proxy, and I might want to create a couple of 2 core 12GB instances at some point, rather than one big one. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- gioco_chess_al_cess · 2023-11-23 03:32 Take a look at RAM and CPU usage. Those VMs are extremely useful but have limits: swapspace is almost mandatory, lightweight custom images like debian recommendable, and CPU load should be kept low. On the last point consider that you have just 1/8 of oCPU guaranteed, indeed the VM has two CPUs but these are for short time bursts. If CPU time is abused the hypervisor will severely throttle the instance possibly locking it (keyword: steal time). With proper configuration there shouldn't be any problems with running reverse proxies. I have caddy running on arch and SWAG running on debian on those VMs alongside with many other containers without issues. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Big-Finding2976 · 2023-11-23 03:45 Thanks for the tips. Oracle Linux is using swapspace by default, but I'll see if I need to adjust the settings, and I'll probably create a separate Debian instance to see if that uses less resources. After uninstalling cockpit, the program using the most memory was osms_agent (only 1.1% but every bit counts when you've only got 1GB), so I disabled that from the Oracle website as well, and after rebooting it has about 290MB free now. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SillyLilBear · 2023-11-23 04:30 You run much on the free tier setup? I have one hosting a minecraft server, but always concerned they will cancel it as they seem to do that often. I thought about repurposing it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- cloudswithflaire · 2023-11-23 06:10 I wish you the best of luck. Hopefully your region/data center is less congested than mine, I had a script running that tried every 30 seconds to deploy a 4c/24gb vm using the oracle api, and it still took nearly a month before I got one. Some folks are saying that they haven’t gotten one after multiple months. yikes Oh one last ‘protip’: you get 1 free dedicated IPv4 on free tier as well. Which you can move with you from machine to machine, figured that might be a nice thing to have for DNS whenever you do get your reverse proxy deployed. Just go to the VM’s vnic settings page, unassig the ephemeral and have it create and attach a dedicated one for you. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Big-Finding2976 · 2023-11-23 12:46 Wow! I didn't realise it was that hard to get that one deployed. I might try now then, rather than waiting until I actually need it. I note it says it's only free for 3000 CPU hours per month. Does that mean we can't use it to run something like a reverse-proxy that needs to be available 24/7? Thanks for the tip about the free dedicated IPv4 address. That will be useful for the reverse proxy, and it will also save me having to change the address in tools like Putty and WinSCP. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- cloudswithflaire · 2023-11-23 12:53 Those 3000 hours equate to 4core/24gb running around the clock for the entire month. As long as you never paid or put a $100 deposit down for your account - you can run anything they give you access to around the clock and never worry about getting charged. I normally tell people to make sure they have a purple banner at the top of the page, warning them that the account needs to upgrade. If that is there, then you have nothing to worry about! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Big-Finding2976 · 2023-11-23 13:04 Ah, that's cool then. I didn't pay anything or put down a deposit, there's no payment details set up in my account, and I have the purple upgrade banner. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ProbablePenguin · 2023-11-23 15:09 Debian minimal uses like 30MB of RAM, so it's pretty unlikely.