- Free allowance
- 'Segfault offers free unlimited Root Servers.
- Verdict
- ★ qualifiesusable as stated; the read path was probed
- Cost
- free tier
- Identity
- anonymousno card, no phone
- Binding limit
- volume-quotafree servers are resource-restricted; the numeric memory, CPU and storage caps are not published on any page read
- Evidence
- documented10 sources; a first-party page was read and the sentence quoted
- Freshness
- stale on 2026-11-24checked 2026-10-24 (live); stale on 2026-11-24
| Free tier | 'Segfault offers free unlimited Root Servers. A new server (inside a Virtual Machine) is created for every SSH connection.' Access is an ssh login as root on segfault.net with the password 'segfault'; no signup, no email, no account. The free server carries restrictions: 'The storage, memory, processing power and bandwidth is limited.' unit hours; metered on wall-clock |
|---|
| Price | none stated |
|---|
| Limits | - retention-clamped auto-shutdown when no shell is running in tmux or screen and nobody has logged in for 1.5 days source
- retention-clamped permanent data in /sec cleared after 30+ days without a login source
- volume-quota (binding) free servers are resource-restricted; the numeric memory, CPU and storage caps are not published on any page read source
- per-ip-shaping outbound traffic is throttled on the free tier; the rate is not published source
|
|---|
| Binding | volume-quota The free tier's memory, CPU and disk caps are unpublished, so the first thing that fails is whatever the per-container limit is, and you cannot know it before logging in and running cat /config/self/limits. |
|---|
| Identity | anonymous no account, no email, no card, no phone, no document. The login is ssh [address removed] with the password 'segfault'; a per-server SECRET is generated at login and is the only thing that identifies the machine back to you. Nothing is registered anywhere. |
|---|
| Egress | 'the outbound traffic is throttled' on the free service; the throttle rate is not published. Outbound is routed through Mullvad/CryptoStorm/NordVPN exit nodes. |
|---|
| Per-object cap | one root server per SECRET; a new SECRET yields a new server with a new /sec filesystem. Not a cap on how many you may hold. |
|---|
| Retention | 'Data in your home directory and in /sec, /onion and /everyone are permanent. This data is cleared only if the server is not logged in for 30+ days.' Root filesystem and /tmp are wiped at logout: 'Data in (/usr, /tmp, ...) is only valid for the duration of the session'. |
|---|
| Interface | ssh SSH only, on port 22 or 443, plus a .onion and .gsocket route. Root inside the guest. No web console, no API. A reverse TCP/UDP port on a public IP is provided; curl sf/port prints the IP and port. |
|---|
| Tooling | any SSH client; OpenSSH must be new enough to support -o SetEnv (the FAQ names 'Bad configuration option: setenv' as the failure on old clients) |
|---|
| Composes with | An anonymous root shell with a public reverse port and no account of any kind: the cheapest possible way to hold a WireGuard endpoint or a cron-driven monitor without giving up an identity, at the cost of a 1.5-day idle reap. |
|---|
| Reliability | No reliability event observed. The operator states it may shut free servers down under resource contention and that it is 'no company' run in spare time, which is a capacity statement rather than an observed outage. |
|---|
| Notes | The only provider with a genuinely anonymous identity cost: no signup form exists to be filled in. Three things are unresolved and all three need a login must not perform. First, the numeric shape (vCPU, RAM, disk) is not on any first-party page; cat /config/self/limits prints it after login. A third-party writeup (nixsanctuary.com) states 128 MB personal storage, 16 GB shared and a read-only rootfs at 500 Mbit/s, which is reported-only and contradicts nothing but is unconfirmed. Second, the outbound throttle rate is unpublished. Third, 'unlimited Root Servers' is the operator's phrase; whether it means unbounded concurrent servers is unstated. The guest has no systemd, so a daemon has to be started from /sec/usr/etc/rc.local. A reverse port is explicitly provided, so an inbound listener works without a static IP of your own. |
|---|
| Evidence note | documented The machine's numeric shape is unverified: no first-party page publishes it, and the config file in the public repository has every limit commented out. |
|---|
| Parsed numbers | - price USD 0 10 hours a day / month
- price USD 0 / month
- has-free-tier 1
|
|---|