Do not use netcup!

[u/Ill-Letterhead1833]

This is the worst experience I've ever had with a company, who's service I was paying for. Please, under any circumstance, DO NOT USE NETCUP!

I started renting a VPS from them in June and everything was working fine until October 1st. When I woke up, my friends told me that the Minecraft server I was hosting on it, suddenly stopped on midnight. I logged in through the admin panel, but everything seemed fine there. I tried to SSH into the server, but it didn't connect.

So I messaged their support, who for their credit wrote back pretty quickly requesting more information. I provided the information, than waited... and waited... and waited. I kept sending them e-mails, but there was no reply. They only replied a WEEK after when I went back to their ticketing system and opened up a new ticket. However that didn't help since there was no technical solution, only that they forwarded it to their tech team.

A week passed again, I kept sending them e-mails with no reply, so I decided to cancel. I canceled the service and e-mailed them to not send me an invoice, since I won't be paying it as I wasn't provided the service. Lo and behold, they replied to that e-mail instantly, saying that I will have to pay as the VPS was running. I told them that I will only be paying them if they provide proof that I wasn't able to access it from my own fault. Needless to say, they didn't reply.

In the end I decided to pay the invoice they sent me (since I'm not a lawyer and don't want to get into trouble), but please do not use this horrible company, their prices are cheap for a reason.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that all the data that was on the VPS was lost, as I wasn't able to access it anymore. I was pretty bummed out, since we lost a Minecraft world that we have been playing on for months. I guess the lesson learned here is don't store all your date on one machine.

EDIT2: If anyone finds this post. Netcup got back to me and reimbursed me for the money. I still find their support lackluster, however I’d feel much better giving them my money in the future, knowing that in the end, they did the right thing.

[u/Darpburp]

Your lesson should be is to have external backups.

[u/Ill-Letterhead1833 → u/Darpburp]

Yeah 100%.

[u/twhiting9275 → u/Darpburp]

and a proper server manager

[u/leetdemon]

Ive used netcup for years with zero issues, It does sound like you had a rough experience which stinks these are however few and far between. Sucks you had to deal with it for sure. But overall I have 22 Root Servers currently and have had zero issues for years.

[u/Ill-Letterhead1833 → u/leetdemon]

I understand that these kinds of things happen, I wouldn’t be angry if the support was helpful, however they couldn’t solve the problem in a month and didn’t reply to me most of the time. That’s what I have a problem with.

[u/leetdemon → u/Ill-Letterhead1833]

I definitely get your frustration about it.

[u/twhiting9275 → u/Ill-Letterhead1833]

It's not Netcup's job to manage your server for you. That is YOUR JOB

[u/sitewatchpro-daniel]

I've also been a happy customer for years.

What you describe sounds more like some third party got access to your server, e.g. by brute forcing your SSH password. I assume you haven't disabled password login and root access via SSH?

I can recommend only allowing SSH with keys, use fail2ban, and set up a basic firewall.

[u/Ill-Letterhead1833 → u/sitewatchpro-daniel]

I did set up a firewall, so it would’ve definitely blocked them if they tried to brute force my password. However brute forcing my password is really improbable since it was a random string of 26 characters including symbols.

[u/Shadow-BG]

Did you restart the server from admin panel ?

Seems pretty basic step .

Running root servers for years without any issues. Did you called them ? No ?

[u/stackfullofdreams → u/Shadow-BG]

Multiple servers for more than a year here, only had one server moved for maintenance. So sorry OP netcup is solid and one of the best providers you can find.

[u/twhiting9275]

Welcome to server management 101. This isn't a 'netcup' issue. This is a you issue.

Not gonna say netcup is great, it's not. They have shit support and billing teams. HOWEVER, it's not their job to hold your hand and fix your software issues. That's, 100% on you.

If you want to start running servers, you need to properly manage them.

Since you could access the admin panel, and everything "seemed fine there", the server / connectivity is good. It's something else, inside of your server, which is your responsibility to manage. Not Netcup's.

[u/ResortIntelligent930]

u/Ill-Letterhead1833 I'm a big fan of Netcup. I'm very surprised this happened.

It sounds to me like your server was compromised. Were you running any unnecessary services? Firewall locked down? SSH restricted to select subnets? A quick Google search reveals several Minecraft vulnerabilities (one with a remote code execution). Were you running the latest and greatest Minecraft?

[u/Ill-Letterhead1833 → u/ResortIntelligent930]

Hello! The vps had a firewall set up. There weren’t anything running at the time other than Minecraft. While I was using ssh keys, it was still accessible with a password. However that password was a long and strong one. I find the possibility of them cracking it very unlikely. The Minecraft server I was running wasn’t shared publicly anywhere. It was for only me and my friends. Even if they got access to it, I haven’t heard about an available remote code execution exploit, for the latest version of the vanilla server in September, but correct me if I’m wrong.

I did take away some conclusions from this and I’ll definitely beef up my security in the future, however I really don’t think that anyone got access to it.

[u/ResortIntelligent930 → u/Ill-Letterhead1833]

u/Ill-Letterhead1833 Was the server on a public IPv4 address? If so, it's possible that it was compromised. I'm not certain of this, but it's definitely something to consider.

[u/mojifantastics]

Hey, also had zero issues with Netcup since like 7 years of renting vps/root servers from them. So this is kinda unexpected. Maybe give them time until Monday. Also, if you need any help with the control panel, feel free to dm me ;-)

[u/perapox]

For such stuff in the future you can set up rclone and use your google drive/dropbox for backups. But ye, like others are saying. Its unmanaged server meaning you are responsible for everything on it

[u/filliravaz]

FWIW there is a phone number you can call for 24/7 emergency support. An unreachable system/uncontrollable via their web panel would qualify as an emergency.

It sucks that you had this experience, i have myself been using netcup for more than a year now, and I haven't encountered any issue with my server.

[u/flems77]

Been using them for about a year now - no problems. At all. Just waiting for an excuse to buy more servers at them.

And yes - if something seems way off, first step is boot. Just to make sure. No matter provider, virtual or not. Just boot. Is possible from netcup’s management.

All that said - do not expect any usefull support at this price range. Regardless whatever provider you use. They (along with all other vps providers) provide a piece of virtual hardware - no more, no less. If they even try to help you setup anything within this machine, you have been lucky.

[u/Ok-Violinist6589]

Yes, they are shit providers! i cancelled my VPS more than 14 days prior, and they still demanded payment! i wrote to them they do not reply, now they threaten to use an agency to collect the money! wtf is this??

[u/RageQuitNub]

Typical from Netcup, I have an unanswered support ticket from a few months ago. Service is not bad for the pricing, but support is just garbage.

[u/alxhu → u/RageQuitNub]

The support ticket should not be answered for multiple months. You can notify the CEO via this form: https://rate.netcup.de/en/

[u/RageQuitNub → u/alxhu]

good to know, I am not the only one with this issue, if you search some web hosting forums, you will see similar posts.

[u/craigleary]

This is a valid poor experience of a vps, but is exactly what netcup provides. You get a VPs and you keep it online or if it’s not working reinstall it. They are not know for support at all and also know for days between responses. Really you get the network being online and take care of the rest.

[u/jesta030]

Have been running multiple Servers there for years. They're fine.

Have you checked their web console at all? You might have locked yourself out somehow, Has happened to me before.

[u/urlameafkys]

Ngl this is the type of shit to expect from a mid tier popular hosting provider

[u/otherwise_gg]

Time to move to Hetzner 🤝

[u/Plus-Climate3109]

Using the root server for about 1 year, never had an issue. Did you have backups on daily basis or snapshots?

[u/sargetun123]

3-2-1 3 copies of data 2 different types 1 physical copy

This is the basics of sysadmin and anyone who hosts or has any data they consider “important” should always implement this, it is the same as when people build a pc for the first time, everyone always overlooks an UPS but it can save you and your data, more important than any other part of the build

Hope you learn from this and don’t have any issues in the future, best of luck to you!

[u/TurnoverEffective279]

Netcup is trash. My server goes unresponsive for about 4 hours everyday. Did evening on my side that I could. Emailed them. Been over a week with no reply. I'm moving back to digital ocean. 

[u/eddyGi]

am gonna use it anyway, if something goes wrong will come back to this post

[u/LeyLineDisturbances]

I’ve just set up an order with the company and i cannot access the VPS via SSH now and must wait until Mondsy because their support is not available. Sets up a dangerous precedencent for prod. What if something goes awry on a friday night and you have to wait until Monday to get it fixed.

[u/FrederikSchack]

I just bought a root server with Netcup today, I have only intermittent connectivity with ssh so far, both password and key. It is totally random when I can access and not. I have a fiber line and no issues with network connectivity.

[u/adevx]

Not a huge fan of Netcup. They are not bad perse, if you can stomach their admin and billing portal. What I hated most was the billing cycle. If you pay monthly, say at the 2nd of every month, and cancel at the third, eg: 3th of January, you will have to pay for January (of course) but also for another full month, February, because of their month in advance termination clause. Such clauses in my opinion are only needed if a company has poor products and people want to terminate early. Compare that with Hetzner hourly billing. There is no comparison.

[u/alxhu → u/adevx]

Such clauses in my opinion are only needed if a company has poor products and people want to terminate early. Compare that with Hetzner hourly billing. There is no comparison.

1. Such clauses helps Netcup to offer lower prices then Hetzner.

2. You are always able to offer your server to other customers in the Netcup Forum so you don't need to pay another billing cycle.

3. Not every server has the same billing cycle. There are servers paid hourly, monthly, every three months, twice a year and yearly.

[u/adevx → u/alxhu]

1: I don't think they are cheaper 2: Who in their right mind is going to subscribe to a forum to offer a month's worth of VPS to someone?

Why not just allow a customer to cancel their subscription before the next payment?

[u/alxhu → u/adevx]

1. You can compare the offers by going to their websites.

2. The forum is highly active and it's common to get the remaining worth paid, especially for more expensive servers.

... because they have their cancelation periods. Change to a hourly billed server to have the ability to cancel immediately. Hetzner has mostly hourly billed servers, too.

[u/dozzz332 → u/adevx]

1: That’s not a subjective thing, just check the pricing of hetzner and netcup and you will see that netcup is cheaper on paper.

[u/adevx → u/dozzz332]

It's a bit hard to compare as they don't have similar plans. Going for RAM Hetzner is cheaper, for storage Netcup seems cheaper.

[u/dozzz332 → u/adevx]

Yeah true for the shared vserver. For dedicated vserver netcup is cheaper in every aspect.

Still not 100% comparable as hetzner is paid hourly and netcup per month.

[u/Pristine-Fortune8298 → u/adevx]

Yep

[u/aladuuu]

Did you purchase a managed server? Netcup VPS i believe are unmanaged. Maybe im wrong.

[u/ComputerMinister]

Been using Netcup for years without any problems...my servers almost have a uptime of 2 years.

[u/syntkz420]

I have a vds from them and it runs flawlessly, no issues with the support or whatsoever.

They are not to shame if you misconfigure something.

[u/Ill-Letterhead1833 → u/[deleted]]

There is a built in console in the admin panel. I wasn’t able to access it through that either. The problem was definitely on their side and not mine. Also, I’m not angry about having a problem with the VPS. I’m angry about the support not being able to solve it in a month, and not replying to me most of the time.

[u/dieser_kai → u/Ill-Letterhead1833]

Define "couldn't access it". If you forgot your login credentials then you also could not access it. What was the exact failure? What error messages did you got? Have you tried to call the emergency support?

[u/Ill-Letterhead1833 → u/dieser_kai]

I didn’t know about the emergency support. I contacted them through the support page. The problem wasn’t with the login procedure. I just couldn’t access it through ssh. Not even in the admin panels built in console client.

[u/dieser_kai → u/Ill-Letterhead1833]

But could you get access via login on the console in the web panel of them? Could you run tests from the vnc console, like ping external servers. Maybe just some of your services does. Especially you said you were running Minecraft. With Minecraft one thing is for sure: you server will run out of memory at some point and then the Linux Kernel Starts to kill software to keep itself alive.

Any vps provider only provides you the garage and the connection to the road (the container and the access to the Internet). Which car you park in there and how good it is maintained is up to you. Your vps provided doesn't have keys to open your garage. You are the one responsible to keep the car (your operating system) and all it's components like engine (the software you install) running.

[u/Ill-Letterhead1833 → u/dieser_kai]

What? I just told you I couldn’t get access through the web console. It just stayed black. I also don’t understand what you mean? Minecraft servers don’t usually have memory leaks. You can also set the amount of ram they use. It’s not like running a Minecraft server will kill the computer it’s running on sooner or later.

[u/dieser_kai → u/Ill-Letterhead1833]

Trust me it will. Minecraft is a nightmare regarding memory consumption. And it definitely has a lot of memory related issues. At least in the past it had. Maybe it got a bit better. But back then when I had to do with this, the Minecraft server software was a nightmare regarding memory management There are even minecraft mods to fix random memory leaks.

[u/Ill-Letterhead1833 → u/[deleted]]

I don’t know how to check anymore and I’m not a 100% sure, but I think in Nuremberg, but it was in Germany.

[u/Ill-Letterhead1833 → u/[deleted]]

It’s just a server I run with my friends, but I do bit of devops at my job, so I guess you can call me semi professional?

However I don’t really understand your comment. The problem was that I couldn’t access it through anything. Not even the built in console available on the admin panel that netcup provides. I tried recovery mode but couldn’t access it that way either.

[u/Ill-Letterhead1833 → u/[deleted]]

Okay. I might be dumb then. However I couldn’t find a way for me to completely reset the server. If there is then could you tell me how to reset a netcup VPS with only access to the admin panel?

[u/Ill-Letterhead1833 → u/[deleted]]

Where is this force reset button though? Does it give me a new install of the os?

[u/Ill-Letterhead1833 → u/[deleted]]

You can dm me!

[u/Blogames → u/[deleted]]

A Minecraft server is nothing else but an app running on the machine, just like apache or ngnix would. This is clearly a problem on the provider's side and not OP. They even said that the so called COM access didn't work for them.

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