From their site:
Instantly launch your favorite internet appliance with just a click using Cloud Seeder, our open-source server appliance platform for everyone, or use your skills and manually setup a home server lab. With IPv6rs, you will have the external IP you need to self host on your home computer or mobile device.
$10 a month, or $60 for a year, or $80 for 2 years.
Seems they give you an externally routable IP6 address, and then make that route to your home network, where you still have to run the server. They do have an app which is meant to make it easier to install podman containers for whatever service you want to run. For some reason, they call those “appliances”. Not a fan of that word.
Before anyone jumps in to say, “Pffft. I do this now for free” - this isn’t aimed at you then, is it? It’s aimed at making it possible for less technical people to self-host some of their digital life, which is a good thing in general, in my mind. Kind of like how Linux needed more user-friendly distros for the masses to increase adoption. Good on them, I say, and good luck.
It’s fairly straightforward to do for free with Hurricane Electric. Some home routers even have it built in as an option. https://tunnelbroker.net/
I’m assuming anyone who’s playing around with servers is capable of implementing it.
It’s very easy to setup a Hurricane Electric tunnel and you get an entire /48 for free. The only downside is that it doesn’t work over CGNAT.
It looks like IPv6rs is using WireGuard, so it can work even with CGNAT. I didn’t see any mention of what size allocation they hand out though.
Yeah that’s a fair point, much like a VPN I could see this being useful in scenarios where you have limited control over your network.
They don’t allocate you a prefix. The website says they give you 5 addresses.
I tried with HE and you need an external IP before you can use it which makes it completely pointless. I think it’s way easier to do it with ipv6rs.
That must be a very unfortunate situation where you don’t have control of your network for that to be a concern though. in which case I wouldn’t expect it to be suitable for a internet facing homelab?
Like I’m struggling to think of scenarios for this.
I suppose you could be trying to setup a homelab on a college network or using someone else’s internet connection where you have no input on the matter.
Perhaps, I could see a case for CGNAT like another user mentioned, where the whole town shares an single IP for example. But I’d imagine such a network would offer poor performance.
But in all those scenarios, a VPS is cheaper and you can do everything this service offers and more.