On some gear-oriented YouTube channels, people will do pocket dumps or bag dumps where they’ll show you everything that they carry on a daily basis.  These are things like phones, chargers, multitools, batteries, knives, guns, sunglasses, you name it.  “Bag dumps” or “pocket dumps” are quite popular among the EDC (every day carry) community and many others.

I don’t have any VMs in my pocket – though I could.  I know a guy who carries a little Hootoo wireless travel router, a Raspberry Pi, an external hard drive with wifi, and his laptop, all in a “smart” backpack (the kind that includes a lithium battery inside the bag).  When he wants to work, he’s got his Linux and storage environment ready to go.  He calls it his “backpack area network”.

But that’s not what I’m talking about here.  Instead, I’m going to do a Virtual Gear Dump, listing the services I presently use and what I use them for.  Are you interested in doing the same?  We’d love to include your Virtual Gear Dump!  Just PM @raindog308 on LET.

VPS

BuyVM: Been a BuyVM customer since back when you had to wait in line at 2am to get a VM.  @Francisco’s come a long way since then.  My DDoS-protected web hosting is with BuyVM.  Really great offerings, including block storage and dedicated CPU on some plans.

RackNerd: I grab a handful of these when they have a sale, which is nearly always but especially around Black Friday.  You can often get a lot of specs for cheap prices.  I have dozens of little web apps I’ve written for myself, some of which are permanent and some are ephemeral.  I tend to host all of that stuff on RackNerd VMs.

Linode: I use hourly instances for LEB tutorials (on the infamous lowend.party domain!) and Linode has been a really effective platform for this.  I’ve used Vultr in the past as well.

HyperExpert: I still have one of their $1/year VMs from two Black Fridays ago.  Can’t part with it because it’s so cheap!

Shared

Dreamhost: I’ve been a Dreamhost customer off and on since 2004ish.  In fact, they were the first shared hosting I ever used.  I like their custom panel…later when I used cPanel for the first time, I was repelled.  I used to run my own cPanel system for friends/family but…it got to be a job.  My own hosting on my VMs I have no problem with, but once you have to start letting other people in, it gets too complicated.  So I moved everything (and everyone) to Dreamhost.  For basic shared hosting, I’ve been very happy with them.

Email

Gmail: For my personal email domains, I’m lucky to have been grandfathered in.

MXroute: For everything else.

VPN

CatalystHost: Still chugging along with their little 128MB VMs for VPN hosts.  It’s sometimes convenient to always appear from the same IP (whitelisting WordPress admin, etc.).  If you’re looking for one ($12/year last I checked), you need to sign into their client area and then add a service, as I don’t think they advertise them on their site.

PureVPN: I tried them because we had an offer and they’ve been fine for my modest VPN needs.

Cloud Storage

B2: This my main backup, via rclone.  Been quite happy.  Tried switching to Synology’s C2 and was unimpressed.

Dropbox: Since forever.

iCloud: Because I’m an Apple fanboy.

raindog308

Raindog308 is a longtime LowEndTalk community administrator, technical writer, and self-described techno polymath. With deep roots in the *nix world, he has a passion for systems both modern and vintage, ranging from Unix, Perl, Python, and Golang to shell scripting and mainframe-era operating systems like MVS. He’s equally comfortable with relational database systems, having spent years working with Oracle, PostgreSQL, and MySQL.

As an avid user of LowEndBox providers, Raindog runs an empire of LEBs, from tiny boxes for VPNs, to mid-sized instances for application hosting, and heavyweight servers for data storage and complex databases. He brings both technical rigor and real-world experience to every piece he writes.

Beyond the command line, Raindog is a lover of German Shepherds, high-quality knives, target shooting, theology, tabletop RPGs, and hiking in deep, quiet forests.

His goal with every article is to help users, from beginners to seasoned sysadmins, get more value, performance, and enjoyment out of their infrastructure.

You can find him daily in the forums at LowEndTalk under the handle @raindog308.