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GarmanOnline - $3 OpenVZ VPS with 256MB

Garman Online Patrick from GarmanOnline has recently updated all their VPS hosting packages. Moreover, he is providing LowEndBox readers a special package — at $3/month! Via this ordering link, and you get

  • 256MB memory
  • 7GB storage
  • 70GB/month data transfer
  • OpenVZ/SolusVM

HostDime/Orlando FL serversChicago servers. You can also get special discount when you prepay.

  • Pre-pay for 1 year — free single hostname SSL.
  • Pre-pay for 6 months — choose one of the following upgrades:
    • Double storage
    • Double monthly data transfer & 100Mbps
    • 50% more memory

Also see our previous blog post about them if you want to check Patrick’s response to some of the questions from this community.

LEA
Latest posts by LEA (see all)

55 Comments

  1. Just a note! New accounts are now going onto new servers in Chicago (RAID10, nightly backups [soon])

    August 16, 2010 @ 3:56 am | Reply
  2. (forgot to subscribe to the comments!)

    August 16, 2010 @ 7:20 am | Reply
  3. Jaygiri:

    Got an Account!! really instance setup.

    Thanks Patrick, Thanks LEB

    August 16, 2010 @ 9:08 am | Reply
  4. Your welcome! Be sure to let me know if there’s anything we can do for you!
    256MB seems like nothing compared to new desktops computers coming standard with 6GB+ RAM, but with a web server you can do plenty. For less than the cost of shared hosting you get root access and better service.

    I’m adding more templates right now too! Anyone have any requests?

    (do we really need 8GB RAM in a computer that pretty much will be dedicated to Facebook and playing solitaire?)

    August 16, 2010 @ 9:14 am | Reply
  5. IWTFI:

    Hello Patrick,

    Do you allow IRC?

    August 16, 2010 @ 10:49 am | Reply
  6. I believe I may have just spoken with you via Live Chat, as of right now VPS plans do not allow IRC. Select dedicated servers do allow IRC if interested.

    (looks like the old TOS is still posted on the site, will get it updated!)

    August 16, 2010 @ 10:54 am | Reply
  7. Do we really need 8GB RAM in a computer that pretty much will be dedicated to Facebook and playing solitaire?

    Nope. According to William Henry Gates III, 640kb ought to be enough. That’s 160x more memory than my VIC-20 already!

    August 16, 2010 @ 11:04 am | Reply
  8. Thought I would throw this in here too…

    Follow @pmgarman on twitter. I will regularly give away freebies. VPS plans, upgrades, the occasional SSL certificates (for new/current customers), etc.

    http://www.garmanonline.com/offers/who-wants-freebies/

    August 16, 2010 @ 1:10 pm | Reply
  9. Mike:

    You could give yourself an SSL certificate for the order page. :) Just sayin’…

    Pretty impressed so far, despite some setup hiccups. VPS is in a nice location, setup with 2 CPUs, reasonable UBCs, and support has been highly responsive. No complaints from me…

    August 16, 2010 @ 3:37 pm | Reply
  10. I’m guessing plans paid monthly are on 10Mbps bandwidth?

    August 16, 2010 @ 3:56 pm | Reply
  11. @Mike – Thats what we like to hear! I’ve got the SSL certificate, ha just paying close attention to the new servers so that everything stays in line. Thats how I caught the setup error on your VPS! If there was any credit card processing it would be a top priority but since payments are processed through PayPals secure connection we’ve got some extra time to spare

    @Jackk – You are correct, they are 10mb/s. As we expand the plans are to make 100mb/s and even 1000mb/s standard however as of now 10mb/s is the base line. When plans change we will automatically upgrade your services to the latest specs of the package (as long as they are better) and your price will remain the same for the life of your product. 100mb/s is available for $5/mo extra for right now.

    August 16, 2010 @ 4:08 pm | Reply
  12. Mike:

    10Mbps? Really?

    --2010-08-16 20:29:08--  http://download.lxlabs.com/download/lxwebmail4370.tar.gz
    Resolving download.lxlabs.com... 66.197.145.24
    Connecting to download.lxlabs.com|66.197.145.24|:80... connected.
    HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
    Length: 20580388 (20M) [application/x-gzip]
    Saving to: `lxwebmail4370.tar.gz'
    
    100%[===================================================================================================>] 20,580,388  5.95M/s   in 3.4s
    
    5.95MBps = 47Mbps :D
    

    Yeah, the SSL certificate thing isn’t a huge deal, it just looks bad when people get the warning about self-signed certs, and since you’re giving them away, it takes on a certain amusing “why are the cobbler’s children barefoot?” aspect. :)

    August 16, 2010 @ 4:51 pm | Reply
  13. Well you shouldn’t get any self signed certificate warnings, when your order first went through I had forgotten to restart lighthttpd on the master solusvm server and you may have gotten warnings then but now vps.garmanonline.com is properly secured!

    August 16, 2010 @ 5:04 pm | Reply
  14. @Mike – There are all different kinds of factors that will affect your download speed. The remote server, other users on your node, load on peers etc etc.

    Test your speed with this file.

    http://cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test

    August 16, 2010 @ 9:55 pm | Reply
  15. Mike:

    Jackk: I think you miss my point – that I downloaded at at 47Mbps on what was apparently meant to be a 10Mbps connection…

    August 16, 2010 @ 10:21 pm | Reply
  16. InsDel:

    It’s probably *outgoing* bandwidth being limited to 10Mbps, while *incoming* bandwidth is burstable.

    August 16, 2010 @ 11:52 pm | Reply
  17. Mr_Five:

    Ordered… and instant setup… but why dedicated memory = burstable memory?

    August 26, 2010 @ 11:04 am | Reply
  18. Thanks for the order Mr_Five!

    Our plans were all originally setup to have 2x the guaranteed RAM as burstable. Ex 256MB would have 512MB Burst. The reason we decided to change our plans was because it seemed everyone is relying on Burstable RAM, VPS with 256/512 would end up idling around 450MB constantly. So we changed our plans up to be all guaranteed RAM. 256/512 turned into 512.

    Sidenote —- all plans have been upgraded to 100mb/s, and you also can get 1 free GlobalSign DomainSSL certificate with your VPS by submitting a sales ticket. Thanks to all the LowEndBox-ers who took advantage of our LowEndBox special, we are still getting regular orders from people using it.

    August 26, 2010 @ 12:36 pm | Reply
  19. Paul:

    I signed up for a vps server last night, and this morning I submitted two newbie support tickets and received a response in less than 10 minutes for each. So far, I am highly impressed.

    August 26, 2010 @ 2:08 pm | Reply
  20. Hello again Paul!

    We’ve all got to start somewhere, we’re always glad to lend a helping hand anytime we can!

    August 26, 2010 @ 2:18 pm | Reply
  21. So according to the new plan, we can get 512MB RAM and 100Mbps connection? Is the special discount for prepayment valid?

    August 26, 2010 @ 3:32 pm | Reply
  22. The 256/512MB plan was just an example. For the LowEndBox special you get 256MB, but it is on a 100Mbps connection.

    You can still pre-pay 6 months and choose either double hdd, double bandwidth, or 50% more ram though.

    August 26, 2010 @ 3:34 pm | Reply
  23. The LEB Special I can get 256MB Guarantee RAM and no burstable RAM?

    August 26, 2010 @ 3:43 pm | Reply
  24. The LowEndBox special comes with…

    256MB RAM
    7GB HDD
    70GB/month bandwidth
    100Mb/s
    1 GlobalSign DomainSSL certificate

    All for the low low price of $3/month :)

    (FYI, the comment notification for your post went to spam for me. All the other notifications don’t)

    August 26, 2010 @ 8:35 pm | Reply
  25. @Patrick Garman: Thanks for your reply. But my concern is how the 256MB RAM is divided between Guarantee RAM and Burstable RAM. I will assume the 256 is all guaranteed, so when I use more than 256, my box will go down. Is that right?

    August 27, 2010 @ 1:43 am | Reply
  26. The 256MB RAM is all guaranteed. You will run into the same issues that you would with any 256MB VPS that you run out of RAM on. You should never rely on burstable RAM, if you feel that you may use all your guaranteed RAM then you should probably be looking at a plan with more RAM :)

    August 27, 2010 @ 6:33 am | Reply
  27. Mike:

    is VPN allowed on this vps?

    and whats the policy on IRC?

    Mike

    August 27, 2010 @ 3:21 pm | Reply
  28. Mike:

    Sorry ignore IRC I can see above that it is not allowed.

    August 27, 2010 @ 3:22 pm | Reply
  29. chromicant:

    Nice price, but going through the order form…how does the prepay specials get tacked on to an order?

    August 27, 2010 @ 4:56 pm | Reply
  30. VPN yes within reason (no illegal activity).. watch bandwidth and if your VPS starts using resources excessively we will have to disable VPN

    August 28, 2010 @ 11:40 am | Reply
  31. @chromicant

    They are not automated, just submit a support ticket with what you would like to upgrade with. Sorry!

    August 28, 2010 @ 11:59 am | Reply
  32. Me:

    where is the openvz panel? they don’t send me an email

    August 29, 2010 @ 3:14 am | Reply
  33. If you did not receive your email please check your spam. If you cannot find your login details please submit a support ticket as that email also includes your SolusVM username/password which we will not be posting here :)

    August 29, 2010 @ 12:18 pm | Reply
  34. Hi all,
    I bough the VPS from him on Aug 26, 2010 because of his thread that I found on webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=975722

    Everything went smooth, my VPS ready instantly.
    This was the IP: 184.154.62.20
    I never touch till last night (August 28th -29th, 2010 GMT+7) I installed OpenVPN.

    After before the software installed well, the server kept on offline.
    I tried to login to VPS Control Panel, but I faced that every button I clicked (choose the server, trie to boot, etc) redirected my to login page. Once I could boot the VPS, it only could stand less than 5 minutes and went back offline.
    I had no idea what’s wrong with the VPS.

    I contacted Patrick Garman on chat and explained him about my problem.
    Short story he would fix it. And I go to bad for a while (it’s 2am GMT+7).

    At the afternoon, I received an email from support@garmanonline.com that said:

    Hello,
    Your VPS service has been temporarily suspended while we review reports of abuse originating from your VPS. If you have any questions please contact us.
    Thanks
    GarmanOnline

    Again I contacted Patrick Garman and asked him about it.
    From the last time I chated with him till this time, I was not at home. I just tried to login to VPS Control Panel on about 9 GMT+7, but I can’t. Just returned home and received such email. But he said that someone has doing the abuse from my VPS.
    And during the investigating time, he never gimme replacement VPS nor gimme exact time for how long he need to investigate.

    A few hours later, I received 2 emails:

    Hello,
    Unfortunately it has been found that your VPS was in fact the source of many unauthorized access attempts. We have terminated the VPS as well as charged your account a $50 administrative fee per our terms of service. We have a no tolerance policy for any abuse of any sort, and unfortunately this is what has to happen whether you were the person who initiated the attack or not. It is up to you the client to ensure your VPS is secure.
    ==================================
    Address: 184.154.62.20

    Incident type: 22/tcp
    First attempt: 28-aug-2010 22:40:00 GMT-0400
    Last attempt: 28-aug-2010 22:45:00 GMT-0400
    Total attempts: 13573
    ==================================
    GarmanOnline

    Dear (client-name),
    This is a notice that an invoice has been generated on 08/29/2010.
    Your payment method is: PayPal
    Invoice #73
    Amount Due: $50.00 USD
    Due Date: 08/29/2010
    Invoice Items
    Abuse Administrative Fee $50.00 USD
    ——————————————————
    Sub Total: $50.00 USD
    Credit: $0.00 USD
    Total: $50.00 USD
    ——————————————————
    You can login to your client area to view and pay the invoice at garmanonline.com/members/viewinvoice.php?id=73
    Thanks,
    Patrick Garman

    Twitter: @pmgarman | Google Talk: patrick@garmanonline.com | Skype: garmanonline
    Personal Blog/Portfolio: patrickgarman.com

    Again I contacted Patric Garman ask for the issue.
    He replied no matter who’s used/accessed the VPS, I have to responsible.
    This is very funny. I reported him a problem that occured on the VPS, take a rest, enjoyed my Sunday, but at the end I have to spend $50 for what somebody’s done. He failed to gimme the IP which attached/used the VPS

    This company is not only want to scam me, but robe me.
    He took my $3 and robe me $50.

    So I remaind all lowendbox visitors to be carefull with garmanonline.com/

    August 29, 2010 @ 7:28 pm | Reply
  35. Mike:

    Signed up 2 days ago, after quick pre-sales discussion via live chat, followed by instant setup and instant support response. great service and for the price quoted cannot fault 1 bit so far. :-)

    August 29, 2010 @ 11:12 pm | Reply
  36. Sorry – Just need to un-subscribe.

    August 29, 2010 @ 11:20 pm | Reply
  37. @walviax — looks like it’s just a case that you are not able to secure your VPN server and get penalized by GarmanOnline?

    August 29, 2010 @ 11:38 pm | Reply
  38. More information is in the WHT thread…
    http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=976817

    – Client was in SolusVM control panel at the time of the abuse even though they state they were not doing anything with it
    – Accused staff of being the source of the abuse and that the only people that could have accessed it were themselves and staff (a VPS open to the internet has regular hack attempts from what I see…)

    This is an unfortunate situation, and the client has decided to post it everywhere. We try to be as professional as possible and provide the best service/customer service as possible. We are a budget VPS host, yes we are new to public hosting, no we are not new to hosting in general (just offering it publicly).

    The client had two other issues, one of which was resolved immediately the other we were never able to replicate and has not been resolved because we cannot find an issue (this client [no others] was getting kicked out of SolusVM every time they clicked a button).

    August 30, 2010 @ 12:12 am | Reply
  39. walviax:

    @ LowEndAdmin
    How do you know that I’m not able to secure my VPS?
    I installed/setup VPS as for VPN so many times.
    This VPS was under setup, and I couldn’t make it done since the VPS shutdown it self for manytime. That’s why I reported him (garman)

    So if you said the VPS was not secure, my answer yes it’s not secure yet since it’s under progress.

    But garman said that the abuse/problem has occur since I didn’t report him.
    It means, I bough the VPS, I didn’t touch till I installed the VPS, but during that time, somebody’s trying to abuse using my VPS.

    August 30, 2010 @ 5:52 am | Reply
  40. We need to get the timeline straight because it keeps getting skewed.

    – The VPS was up, as I was monitoring a few changes I made on the host node for another client (iptables related). I could see that all but one VPS was down and that one was a personal one that I had shut down while I was not using it. The only time it was down was on Sunday Morning (CST) I was informed it was unstable and solusVM was kicking the client out. I booted it and it stayed online. SolusVM issue still yet to be replicated.
    – The Abuse occured Saturday night (CST), I received the report Sunday morning (CST) AFTER speaking with the client via live chat. Immediately suspended service to client, notified them, and started investigating.
    – Client raised concerns they did not have any access what-so-ever to the VPS and had not even attempted to use it until Sunday morning (CST) when SolusVM was giving them issues.
    – We validated reports that the VPS was being used to attack an institutions servers (13000+ attempts) and per our terms of service have terminated service and charged the minimum abuse fee.

    a few notes…
    — Client was logged into SolusVM at the time of the abuse, per IP log… yet they say they never access the system
    — Once we suspended service we were accused of doing the abuse on the clients VPS because there is no one else who has access
    — It is not possible for a previous client with this IP (none of our clients previously had it) could access the server unless it was not secured to begin with.

    We would have preferred to resolve all of this privately, as with any client issue… however the client has chosen to go public with this and dispute the $3 PayPal transaction.

    August 30, 2010 @ 12:15 pm | Reply
  41. To resolve the issue and so we can all move on we have already cancelled the $50 fee.

    August 30, 2010 @ 12:18 pm | Reply
  42. I see, in the ToS…

    You agree not to use the Services to:
    – administer IRC;

    ^ What does that mean? Does it refer to IRC clients or servers?

    September 26, 2010 @ 3:16 pm | Reply
  43. Anything IRC related is not allowed on our VPS at this time. If you are looking for a host for your IRC then we did just release some Atom dedicated servers that we allow IRC on — we’ve got to get the TOS updated for the different services now.

    We will be releasing a brand new website soon, you can see a preview of it in our new client area (clients.garmanonline.com). Our old client area is still active until we fully switch over.

    September 27, 2010 @ 5:57 pm | Reply
  44. Luuk Tersmette.nl:

    I bought 1 vps at first, and another one afterwards.
    Even though the price was low, i still got excellent service, very responsive aswell.
    I am very pleased so far.

    October 31, 2010 @ 11:29 pm | Reply
  45. Mr_Five:

    Agreed with Luuk, excellent and friendly service from Patrick.
    Also a good uptime from the server :)
    Thanks Patrick.

    November 1, 2010 @ 1:57 am | Reply
  46. @Luuk, Mr_Five – Really glad your enjoying the service! I’ve got some big changes rolling out soon.

    November 1, 2010 @ 2:11 am | Reply
  47. David:

    Could it be that some VPS are offline? I had a VPS working as a slave DNS server ’til last week and now it’s gone.I’ve already opened a ticket but I was wondering if anybody had issues this week?

    January 8, 2011 @ 2:15 am | Reply
  48. My VPS down twice a week, until now not up again , create support ticket 2 day later theres no respond ….

    January 11, 2011 @ 7:48 am | Reply
  49. Artie:

    I think Patrick left
    anybody could contact these guys? I’ve got a DNS which is unoperational since last week
    support’s not working either

    January 12, 2011 @ 9:55 pm | Reply
  50. Mr_Five:

    so far… mine is fine…
    btw… where is Patrick?

    January 13, 2011 @ 3:23 am | Reply
  51. My VPS since 10 day ago down, create support ticket : they answer say theres some problem with administration, 2 day later i create support ticket again for request a fresh VPS for replace my old VPS that down, theres no respon … :(

    January 18, 2011 @ 6:36 am | Reply
  52. Go-Johnny-Go:

    I think Garman Review should update, since Patrick are not answering any support tickets. Garman is offline, and they change to hosting I think, there’s not a client area anymore. Beware that there’s no support.

    January 28, 2011 @ 7:08 pm | Reply
    • As has been stated in multiple emails — everything is changing. Our website’s being 100% re-developed, support is now available via support.garmanonline.com which even if you try to access clients.garmanonline.com it takes you straight there.

      And it has also been stated multiple times (as well as sent out) that all requests should be sent to support@garmanonline.com until the new support center is up. More clients are online than offline – one VPS node is down because the entire server was cancelled by our provider.

      Our home page may be the default WordPress theme but there is even a “Hosting Support Center” link right there for you to see.

      January 29, 2011 @ 11:44 am | Reply
  53. I believe everything posted made a lot of sense. But, what about
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    I am not saying your information is not good., however suppose
    you added a title to maybe get people’s attention?
    I mean GarmanOnline – $3 OpenVZ VPS with 256MB – Low End Box is a little boring.

    You might look at Yahoo’s front page and see how
    they create news headlines to grab people interested.

    You might add a related video or a related picture or two to grab readers excited about what you’ve written. In my opinion, it would bring your website a little livelier.

    September 29, 2015 @ 6:53 pm | Reply
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