Free colocation for Raspberry Pi's at Colocker

[Chris Wilkie]

Hi all

I'm a director of Colocker Ltd, we are a startup data centre company based in Milton Keynes offering a colocation service with a difference.  Instead of using the traditional 19" rack, we sell colocation 'lockers' which are a 316x365x427mm lockable steel unit provided with mains power, cooling, and high-speed connectivity, suitable for hosting any device our clients see fit.

We have been up and running for a couple of months now and have had a number of enquiries from people wanting to host Raspberry Pi's which is what gave us the idea to run this offer.  We are all hackers ourselves and feel this is a good opportunity to give back to the hacker community and support the Raspberry Pi Foundation.

So, as per the email subject, we are offering free colocation (aka hosting) for Raspberry Pi's in one of our lockers in Milton Keynes.  Each Pi will be allocated a single IPv4 address (v6 will be available soon) and the rest is up to you.  Whether you use it to host a personal website, IRC bouncer, non-snoopable email system, off-site backup for your most valuable files, or any other purpose is entirely down to you.

There are a couple of conditions of course:

1. You must be a hackspace member.

2. Don't do anything that will get us in trouble.  Torrents for example, although whether the Pi's CPU would cope with that very well I'm not sure.

3. The Pi must be cased.  I suggest http://bigcw.net/z30DPFUr as it covers (and protects) the SD card slot

4. Data transfer allocation will be 100GB per Pi per month.

5. There will be no support.  If you break something it's down to you to fix it.

6. Maximum of 22 Pi's, because the switch I'm using has 24 ports, one is the uplink, and one has my Pi in it!

So, what's the catch?  Well, there isn't one, we are genuinely offering this free to Hackspace members.  However, obviously we are trying to promote a new business so if you write a blog or something like that some favourable comments, a link or a mention of us would be appreciated, but this is entirely optional.

For more information on Colocker see the website at www.colocker.com.

If you are interested, drop me an email off-list and I will assign an IP address to you and make arrangements to get your Pi over to us.

Regards, Chris

[Morris]

Very cool of you guys. Nice. I'm tempted.

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[Eugene Nadyrshin]

Yeah that's great, count me in :)

[Yvan Janssens]

You should've received a crappy tablet mail by now.

~/

2014/1/7 Eugene Nadyrshin <ment...@gmail.com>

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|_|0|_|   Yvan Janssens
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[Eugene Nadyrshin]

So Chris, how do we go about it.

Shall we nominate someone in our group for access, or do we just get the Pis to you somehow?

Cheers

Mentar

[Ndlovu (aka) Dean]

I am in to please 

[Chris Wilkie]

Hi

I'm happy to be the point of contact for this for now, makes it easier for everyone I think.  I'm hoping you all know enough about Linux (or your chosen OS) to not be breaking things so badly that they can't be fixed remotely, or that if you do you will just send a new card and I'll send yours back!  If it does turn out that there is a support load to deal with I may need someone to be nominated but we'll cross that bridge when/if it arises.

The other solution of course is just to grant access for everyone, but I'm not keen on that simply as it raises other issues.  What if someone goes to site and then disturbs another Pi.  Perhaps the person who's Pi is dead won't notice straight away.  Who's responsibility is it to go back and fix it?  Was the death down to a cable being disturbed or just a crash?  It all starts getting complicated as you can see.

Anyway, the situation at present is that the PSU has arrived from China.  Unfortunately it is a little more 'open' that I had hoped (http://chrisw.net/stuff/IMG_2537.JPG) so I'm going to have to put it in an enclosure to guard the mains terminals.  That is now ordered, and I've taken the opportunity to add a current meter so I can keep an eye on the load.  As soon as the bits arrive (only one is coming from China this time) I'll make up a final list of people who want to get involved, allocate a block of IPs and start dishing them out.

Once you have your IP configured on the Pi we just need to arrange to get them to me.  Posting is fine, or dropping them off, or we can possible nominate someone at the space to collect them up and courier them all in a box.  Please also make sure it is labelled with your name and preferably an email address too!

In the mean time, if there is anyone else interested who wants to take up the offer do please drop me an email so I can put your name on the list.  There are still spaces left.  If they don't all get filled I may open the offer up to another hackspace.

Cheers, Chris

[Adrian Godwin]

I live near milton keynes and will happily be a courier if that's useful.

[Men tar]

Artag, thanks, that would be quite useful actually

Chris, how about we get the PIs to Artag (a.k.a. Adrian).

Anyone else want to hand their units to Artag to save him having to make multiple trips?

Thanks!
Eugene/Mentar

[Chris Wilkie]

Just a brief reminder now that the Pi B+ is upon us that this offer for free RPi hosting is still open to Hackspace members.  We have around 10 switch ports left at present, and I have just added another IP address block.

The free offer is open to Pi's only ie no external HDD's or anything like that.  The Pi must be in a case, and any USB memory key you want to use must protrude less than 20mm from the Pi case.  The other conditions in the original post also apply for obvious reasons and we would still appreciate it if you would spread the word about where you Pi is hosted and how great the service is!

Of course we can host a Pi with a HDD, or any other small device for that matter, but it will be a paid-for service.  Contact us, or see www.colocker.com, if you have a specific requirement.

When you have your Pi ready just drop me an email off-list and I will assign you an IP address.  You can then either post it up to us in Milton Keynes, give it to me at the space, or even bring it to EMF.

Regards, Chris

[Deadlight]

Hi Chris,

I'm thinking about taking you up on your offer and was wondering about the hard limits on the dimensions of the case.

Thanks,

Karl

[Benjamin Blundell]

Sounds good to me too! I'd be keen :) cheers!

B

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[Dean Forbes]

I am alsovery keen on taking this offer up - Thanks Chris 

On Monday, 6 January 2014 22:14:13 UTC, Chris Wilkie wrote:

[Chris Wilkie]

Hi

For the purpose of the free offer we expect the case to be of the type that fits the Pi snugly.  There was a link in the original post: http://bigcw.net/z30DPFUr.

Basically we are putting them on a small rack designed around that case, so if they are more than a few mm bigger than the Pi itself they won't fit on the shelves.

If you wish to use a USB key please ensure these do not protrude more than 20mm from the edge of the Pi board.

Of course we can host bigger devices, or things other than RPi. but this is beyond the scope of the free offer!  Just email or call in that case an I will be happy to quote.

Regards, Chris

[Men tar]

Just got my RPI B+ for this and turns out it doesn't fit into that case as it's quite different, is that going to be when you come to stacking them?

[Errikos Ouz]

Hello!
I am interested in sending my RaspberryPi to be collocated. Is there any free slot?
Could you please provide some more information on what it is required?

Thank you very much for the free service and the support to the community :-)

[Theodoros Papatheodorou]

Any news on RaspPi colocation?

[Chris Wilkie]

What news are you looking for?

If it's "is the offer still on" then the answer is yes.  Just drop me a line via email if you want to take it up.  With the new Pi2 and it's quad-core CPU we have seen a lot more interest recently!

Cheers, Chris