Knowledge base - manuals:vps

API

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-03-24T20:40:18+00:00

API Our API is running at . The API can be used to perform any action that you can do in the web interface. In fact, the web interface running at uses the API and calls it for every action. API Documentation The API documentation, i.e. a list of objects, possible actions as well as input and output parameters can be found at

Backups

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-10-09T16:14:02+00:00

Backups Backups are implemented using ZFS snapshots. A snapshot captures the state of the dataset and all data in it at the time of its creation. If the data are later changed, you can still access the data as it was when the snapshot was created. You can

Control groups (cgroups)

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-09-08T16:16:25+00:00

Control groups (cgroups) Control groups (cgroups) in Linux are used to account and limit resources of groups of processes. For example, cgroups are used to account CPU usage and let us configure quotas and memory limits. cgroups are one of the foundation blocks of vpsAdminOS: every VPS has its own cgroup and can of course create its own nested cgroups. This is usually handled by the init system and so you don't work with cgroups directly.

Remote Console

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-12-12T15:37:03+00:00

Remote Console Everybody has definitely experienced the situation where the system got into a state where it wasn’t able to connect to SSH – be it because of a turned off sshd, incorrectly set rules in iptables or a lost SSH key. Luckily, you can use vpsAdmin to connect directly to the console of the VPS.

Datasets

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-08-02T18:22:09+00:00

Datasets Dataset is a term from the ZFS filesystem that we're using everywhere. You can imagine it as a formatted partition on disk containg directories and files. For example, btrfs has a similar concept called subvolumes. The dataset in vpsAdmin directly represents the ZFS dataset on the hard drive. Datasets are used for VPS (each VPS has its own dataset) and NAS data. A VPS dataset can be used the same way as an NAS, but are located in different locations (VPS details and the NAS menu). The…

Environments

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2016-12-11T20:01:40+00:00

Environments All nodes are divided into environments. In our case, the following environments are set up: production, playground and storage praha. Each member has resources allocated within the environment (memory, CPU, disk space and IP addresses) – resources that he or she can use on nodes within that environment. Environments can have different settings – the allowed number of VPSs, etc.

Exports of datasets and snapshots

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-02-02T23:48:22+00:00

Exports of datasets and snapshots Exports of datasets or snapshots (backups) are used when we want to mount NAS datasets or snapshots (backups) to a VPS. The created export will make the dataset/snapshot available over NFS. Every export has its own IP address and path, which we use to mount it to VPS, see below.

Dealing with full disks

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2022-06-08T09:30:13+00:00

Dealing with full disks We can use du or ncdu to find directories or files taking up the space: # Search all directories under the root filesystems du -sh /* # When we find a large directory, run du on it, e.g.: du -sh /var/* ncdu features a simple text interface and can also delete the files itself.

Incident/abuse reports

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-08-16T12:29:55+00:00

Incident/abuse reports When IP addresses from our network are the source of spam or are attacking other systems, we often receive abuse notices. We're forwarding these notices to individual members who should then secure their VPS. The notices may also be precautionary when services which are known to be exploitable are available from the public Internet.

IP Addresses

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-07-22T17:25:52+00:00

IP Addresses Public IP Addresses Every member has 1 public IPv4 address and 32 IPv6 addresses available. Additional public IPv4 addresses are subject to a fee, IPv6 addresses are given upon request. Private IP Addresses Private IP addresses access the internet using NAT and are therefore not accessible from the outside. Private addresses are useful if you divide the allocated

Using KVM on vpsFree.cz

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-10-20T11:04:30+00:00

Using KVM on vpsFree.cz VPS are linux containers, i.e. there is only one kernel running on every node, which is shared between all VPS. In case you need your own kernel or if you'd like to use a different operating system, you can create your own virtual machines inside the VPS using QEMU/KVM.

Creating and Managing a VPS

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-03-16T13:23:56+00:00

Creating and Managing a VPS Creating a VPS Members are allowed to create VPSs in the playground and the production environment provided that they have enough resources and their environment settings allow it. You can gain resources by lowering the parameters of existing VPSs or paying extra for more resources.

Metrics for Prometheus

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-08-11T13:45:28+00:00

Metrics for Prometheus vpsAdmin exports metrics for the monitoring system Prometheus. You can add these metrics to your own monitoring setup, whether it’s running in your VPS or elsewhere. The metrics include information about your VPS, such as CPU usage, memory usage, load average, data transfers, OOM reports, node statuses, and more. There are also metrics related to membership, including the date until your membership is paid.

Maintenance and Outages

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-04-02T16:36:59+00:00

Maintenance and Outages We announce maintenance on our infrastructure at least 24 hours in advance. Members are informed about maintenance and outages via email sent to the administrator address of their VPS. The current schedule of upcoming maintenance and ongoing outages is available on the homepage of

Playground VPS

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-10-09T12:47:27+00:00

Playground VPS When you need to test a new application, configuration, perform a system upgrade in rough or prepare a new production VPS, you can use a playground VPS. You can create up to two playground VPS, but their lifetime is limited to 1 month. When the expiration date passes, the playground VPS is deleted and you can reate another one. If you need more than a month to test something, please contact the

PTR Records

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-07-19T18:32:45+00:00

PTR Records Most often, we perform “forward” DNS lookups, i.e. we ask the question: “What IP address does this domain name have?” But there is also a way to do reverse DNS lookups, i.e. asking: “What domain name belongs to this IP address?” In order to do that, however, we need to write a reverse record into the

Fixing a Broken VPS

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-02-02T23:46:08+00:00

Fixing a Broken VPS Since version 2.0, vpsAdmin enables members to solve most problems with a corrupted VPS themselves, i.e. when the VPS won’t start or isn’t accessible on the network. Examples of things that might cause a VPS to get corrupted are system updates, badly chosen commands or configurations, etc.

Staging VPS

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-10-11T08:31:28+00:00

Staging VPS Similar to the playground VPS, you have the option to create a VPS in the staging environment. Staging is used for the development and testing of our virtualization platform vpsAdminOS. In staging, you can utilize more resources, but it is a development environment, and there may be unscheduled downtimes. We test new versions of the kernel, ZFS, and other components here.

Start Menu

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-09-17T17:37:53+00:00

Start Menu The start menu can be seen in VPS console when the VPS is starting. The menu can be used to configure the init command to be used or to start a shell. Without user interaction, the menu starts /sbin/init from the VPS. This command can be sligthly different depending on the distribution.

Data Transfers

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2022-11-18T19:52:17+00:00

Data Transfers Monthly Overviews In the “Networking -> List monthly traffic” menu, we can check the monthly overviews of transferred data. Under default settings, transfers for all VPS for the current month are displayed. Using a filter form, it is possible to only display transfers from the past, choose a specific VPS, node, location, etc.

User Data

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-03-22T17:29:27+00:00

User Data When creating or reinstalling a VPS, vpsAdmin can upload a script or configuration for cloud-init into the VPS. This script or configuration is applied on the first startup of the VPS. We support these formats for the initial configuration: * *

User namespace

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2023-06-17T14:42:04+00:00

User namespace User namespace is a Linux kernel feature used to isolate processes. An unprivileged user from the host's point of view can become root in his user namespace. We use user namespaces extensively: every VPS is running in one such user namespace. As it is, interaction with user namespaces is necessary only in rare cases.

User account management

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2025-02-23T16:40:11+00:00

User account management E-mail addresses vpsAdmin allows users to set one primary e-mail address belonging to the account owner -- a member of our association. This address must be set and can only be a single address. In addition to the primary e-mail address, you can set different addresses for certain contact roles, such as an accountant or system administrator. These settings can be changed in user profile details (vpsAdmin

vpsAdmin

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2020-04-03T09:36:07+00:00

vpsAdmin vpsAdmin is our central information system. It is used to keep records of the members of our association and manage VPSs. The cornerstone of vpsAdmin is the API used to create the web interface and CLI tools. Transactions Transactions are the way vpsAdmin makes changes that are requested by the user for the servers/VPSs. Changes are not made immediately – they are added to a queue and executed one by one.

vpsAdminOS

Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) — 2024-10-09T18:11:14+00:00

vpsAdminOS vpsAdminOS is a host system for containers developed by vpsFree.cz. We use it to run our VPS. About vpsAdminOS vpsAdminOS is a spin of NixOS. The host system is rather small and includes only management services, as it focuses on running everything else in Linux system containers. vpsAdminOS is interconnected with vpsAdmin, our control panel. It is however also usable outside of vpsFree.cz's infrastructure, e.g. on your home server.