Open Infrastructure

h1. FAQ at Data Center Light

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h1. Power

h2. Q: Where do you get the electricity for running all the servers?

*A:* We are running all our datacenter by 100% renewable energy. 99.9% is from hydropower and 0.1% is from solar power. We have our own hydropower plant which uses the water from the Linth, a river coming from the Alps. You can check more on our hydropower plant here. https://datacenterlight.ch/en-us/cms/hydropower/

h1. VPN

h2. Q: How can I get an IPv6 VPN from you?

*A:* Install Wireguard and get back to us with the public key, we'll activate your IPv6 VPN. You can follow the steps below.

※We support one pub-key per /48 network for VPN, if you want to use VPN on multi host at a time, you should set your own server(router, VyOS) with the assigned VPN.

1. Install Wireguard

  https://www.wireguard.com/install/

2. Create your private key:

   umask 077; wg genkey > privkey

3. Get your public key

   wg pubkey < privkey

4. Send us the pubkey to support@datacenterlight.ch

5. We'll get back to you with your network definition.

h2. Q: How much is IPv6 VPN?

*A:* IPv6 VPN is 120 CHF/year, however it is free for all our VM customers as long as the VM is active.

※We support one pub-key per /48 network for VPN, if you want to use VPN on multi host at a time, you should set your own server(router, VyOS) with the assigned VPN.

h1. Storage

h2. Q: Can I add extra storage on my running VM?

*A:* You can add extra storage for the following pricing. 

SDD storage is 3.5 CHF per 10 GB, HDD storage is 2 CHF per 100 GB.

You can write to us via support@datacenterlight.ch for storage addition.

h2. Q: What is Glarnercloud? Is it an own Nextcloud instance? Or is it Owncloud?

*A:* Glanercloud is your own Nextcloud instance, it is a sustainable and open-source alternative for Google Drive or Dropbox.

h2. Q: Is it possible to use a custom domain for Glanercloud?

*A:* Absolutely yes! You'll only need to create the AAAA during the setup process so that we can use letsencrypt certificatess.

h1. Upgrade

h2. Q: When I need more CPU/RAM/Storage for an existing VM, how long does it take? Does my VM need reboot, and if yes, can I be informed about the reboot schedule?

*A:* It depends on when you ask for the upgrade, but usually the upgrade can be done in 1 business day. 

For HDD upgrade the VM does not need to be rebooted, but for the CPU/RAM/SSD upgrade we need to reboot the VM for you, and it can be done as per your preferred schedule. 

You can contact our support and let us know your preferred time and you will hear back from us.

h2. Q: What is the price for CPU/RAM/Storage upgrade? 

*A:* You can order the upgrade for your active VM for the following unit price per month. The prices exclude VAT.

1 CPU: 3 CHF

1 GB RAM: 4 CHF

10 GB SSD: 3.5 CHF

100 GB HDD: 2 CHF

1 TB HDD: 20 CHF

10 TB HDD: 200 CHF

h1. Payments

h2. Q: Monthly billing is cumbersome. Can I pay with longer billing intervals?

*A:* On request, we provide 6 months and 1-year payment plans. For 1 year payment, you can also pay by bank transfer.

h2. Q: I don't have a credit card, can I still order VMs?

*A:* You can pay us via wire transfer for an annual subscription. For monthly pre-paid plans as seen on datacenterlight.ch, we only support credit card payments at the moment.

h2. Q: Is payment via PayPal supported?

*A:* Payment via PayPal is not supported.

h2. Q: Can I pay with Bitcoin?

*A:* Payment with cryptocurrency is not supported.

h2. Q: How do I get EU VAT exempt from my billings?

*A:* To get your EU VAT exemption you need to log into your account and fill in your EU VAT number under the My Dashboard/My Settings. 

https://datacenterlight.ch/en-us/hosting/settings 

After the VAT number input the validation takes about 30 seconds, make sure you type in the EU VAT number before you place an order of a VM. 

In case you are still charged with EU country VAT even after you made the VAT number input, get in touch with our support at support@datacenterlight.ch

h1. Network

h2. Q: How can I get an IPv6 /64 or /48 network for my VM?

*A:* Every customer can request a /64 per VM for free by email. For the request of a /48, we provide it when it's a good use case, for 5 CHF per month. (excluding VAT)

h2. Q: Why does my IPv6 address change when adding an IPv4 address to my IPv6 only VM?

* IPv6 only VMs are in a special IPv6 network that is configured to provide DNS64 replies

** This way IPv6 only VMs can use NAT64 to access the IPv4 Internet

* With a dual stack VM, you can connect directly to the IPv4 Internet

* To have the VM get DNS replies **without** DNS64 entries, the IPv6 address needs to come from a different network

Technically speaking, you could keep the existing IPv6 address, but outgoing requests using DNS will use DNS64 and thus go through the NAT64 translator and thus these outgoing requests will not use the native IPv4 address.

!v6onlyvm-vs-dualstackvm-dns64-nat64.png!

h1. Connectivity

h2. Q: How can I access the console of the VM?

* Go to https://desktop.ungleich.ch and login with your username

** The sessions are synchronised once per hour, so if the VM is younger than 1h, it might not yet be there

h2. Q: How can I login through the console?

* By default VMs don't have a password setup for security reasons

** To be able to login through the console you need to setup a password via ssh

* If you need to recover your VM, but did not set a password before, we recommend to use the @init=/bin/sh@ approach for Linux based VMs

h2. Q: How do I reach the IPv4 Internet from an IPv6 only VM?

*A:* We use NAT64 combined with DNS64 to provide access to the legacy Internet. And it works as follows:

* When you request a DNS entry that has only an A entry (IPv4), we will provide an artificial AAAA (IPv6) entry

* This AAAA entry points into a special /96 IPv6 prefix that maps the whole IPv4 Internet

* When you send a packet inside this prefix, our NAT64 translator will translate it to IPv4

h2. Q: How can I reach the legacy (IPv4) Internet from an IPv6 only VM without DNS?

*A:* Simply append the IPv4 address to the IPv6 prefix. Depending on the data center we use different IPv6 prefixes. You can find the list on https://redmine.ungleich.ch/projects/open-infrastructure/wiki/The_ungleich_network_infrastructure#IPv6-NAT64

h2. Q: Is multiple reverse DNS entries for the same IP address supported?

*A:* Setting up multiple reverse DNS entries for the same IP address is not supported. 

h1. Bandwidth 

h2. Q: What is the price for data usage for VMs?

*A:* We have a fair use policy for bandwidth, meaning there are no fees for network usage. However we have the right to suspend or terminate VMs that are misusing/way out of regular range.

h1. Backup

h2. Q: Are the VMs backed up?

*A:* The VMs are not backed up by default, but we have a dedicated backup data center in which we provide either managed backup or offer a 2nd VM that you can use for backup yourself. More details can be found on the "backup":https://ungleich.ch/u/products/backup/ page.

h2. Q: I want to back up my VM, how does it work?

*A:* There are 2 variants for backing up VMs.  

a) You want to manage it yourself: you can just let us know it's a backup VM and we will shift it to the other data center. It's going to be a physically different location, different ceph cluster, different network, etc.

b) You want us to manage the backup: it's almost like (a), but it will cost 25 CHF plus the booked storage and we will manage the backup for you.

In both cases we recommend to take roughly 5 times space as backup space so that enough iterations (4 last days, 4 last weeks, 12 last months, total of 20 backups) can be kept.

You can check our managed & DIY backup offers here. https://ungleich.ch/u/products/backup/

h2. Q: What is the standard backup VM spec you recommend?

*A:* Usually the backup VM is 1 core, 2-4gb ram, 10gb SSD + 5x the space you want to backup in HDD. If you are not sure, you can get in touch with our support and we can recommend a backup plan for you.

h1. Termination of VM

h2. Q: I terminated my VM by accident via my dashboard, can it be revived?

*A:* When a VM is terminated by the user, it's terminated for good and we can't revive an already terminated VM.

h1. Account 

h1. Password change

h2. Q: I forgot my password for the web interface, how can I change it?

*A:* You can reset your password on the login page -> "Forgot your password?" or the following link. https://ipv6onlyhosting.com/en-us/hosting/reset-password

h1. Account change

h2. Q: I want to change my account email, how can I do it?

*A:* You can reach out to support@datacenterlight.ch and let us know the new email address you want to use, we will send you a simple verification mail to the new address. When we receive a mail back from the new email address, your account email will be updated.

h2. Q: I want to give my VM to somebody else to take over, is it possible?

*A:* Yes, it is possible. There are two ways to do it. 

1. You want to keep the account but just want to give the VM to someone: The new owner needs to have an account with us first. Make sure the new owner has an account with us and then get in touch with support@datacenterlight.ch and let us know the email address of the new owner. We will send a verification mail to that email address and when we receive a mail back, we will move the VM to that account. 

2. You want to give up your account which has (an) active VM(s) to somebody: You can reach out to support@datacenterlight.ch and let us know the email address of the new owner, we will send you a simple verification mail to the new address. When we receive a mail back from the new email address, your account email will be updated to the new owner. The new owner can update the payment method and the billing address at My Settings on the dashboard and can set the new credit card as the default, then the transfer will be complete.

h1. Access

h2. Q: How can I access servers with ssh?

*A:* https://redmine.ungleich.ch/projects/open-infrastructure/wiki/How_to_access_servers_with_ssh

h2. Q: How can I access my VM with putty? 

*A:* [[access VM with putty]]

h2. Q: How can I check the ssh hostkey before connecting to my VM?

*A:* Short answer: at the moment you cannot.

Long answer:

* the SSH hostkey is generated when the VM is created

* the VM does not have any password setup to allow access via the console

h2. Q: Not being able to checkout the host key - isn't that dangerous?

*A:*  In general, this is a security problem. In practice for the VMs running in datacenterlight this does not pose a security issue:

If there is a man in the middle attack (MITM) happening the first time you connect to a VM, the following will happen:

* You will be presented with a host key

* You accept that hostkey

* You send your public key for login

Your ssh client does not send a password or private data - thus a possible attacker does not gain access to any private information.

h1. Username

h2. Q: What is the username for my VM?

*A.:* For all our VMs, you can access it with username root, with exception of OpenBSD. For OpenBSD the username is puffy.

h1. IP address

h2. Q: Is the IP address assigned to my VM static?

*A:*  The IP address assigned to your VM is static.

h2. Q: Can I have more than one IPv4 address for my VM? 

*A:* Yes. An additional IPv4 address costs 9 CHF/month excluding VAT. You can get in touch with our support for additional IP.

h1. Features

h2. Q: There is a feature X missing in Data Center Light, how can I request it?

*A:* We open up our infrastructure to the public, you can check out our open tickets and request a new issue or even create your own solution. https://redmine.ungleich.ch/projects/open-infrastructure

h1. Colocation

h2. Q: Do you offer colocation?

*A:* We do, but for selective cases. You can check the offer details on https://ungleich.ch/u/products/colocation/ For more information, send us your plan and requirements to support@datacenterlight.ch and we will get in touch with you.

h1. Doublup offer

h2. Q: What is doubleup offer and how does it work?

*A:* Doubleup means you get double times of what you ordered without extra charges. For example, if you ordered 1 CPU during CPU doubleup promotion, your VM will get a free upgrade to 2 CPU instead of 1 CPU.

h2. Q: What do I need to do for getting the doubleup?

*A:* For getting a doubleup all you need to do is ordering a VM during the doubleup promotion period and writing to us via support@datacenterlight.ch. For not missing out on our double up promotions, you can check out our sale page. https://datacenterlight.ch/en-us/cms/sale/

h2. Q: How long does the doubleup last?

*A:* Doubled up CPU or RAM lasts as long as your VM is active. 

h1. Unanswered Questions

h2. Q: I didn't find the answer to my question, is there more information available?

*A:* Sure! You can visit our "Open Infrastructure page":https://redmine.ungleich.ch/projects/open-infrastructure/wiki/ and find the information you need.  

You can also join our open chat on https://chat.with.ungleich.ch and join the community.