Frequently Asked Questions

What is Rapid.Space?

Rapid.Space is the low cost, high performance and ethical cloud service of Nexedi group, powered by Open Compute Project hardware and operated by VIFIB using SlapOS Edge Computing technology.

Rapid.Space provides large size server cluster with SSD storage and 10 Gbps LAN at a fraction of the cost of traditional public cloud providers. All source code of Rapid.Space, including accounting and billing, is provided under Open Source / Free Software licenses so that developers can either contribute to Rapid.Space features or replicate Rapid.Space on their premises. By relying on on recycled hardware, Rapid.Space contributes to environmental protection through circular economy.

Why does Rapid.Space only offer big servers?

We believe that it would not make much sense for Rapid.Space to offer small or mid-size servers.

Companies such as Online or Kimsufi already provide fabulous service at incredibly competitive price.

Also, most Web applications currently hosted on small servers will eventually end up hosted directly by Web browsers using decentralised architecture and distributed computing. With technologies such as WebTorrent, CribJS, OfficeJS and Service Workers, it is possible to turn a Web browser into both a Web server, a decentralised CDN and a development environment.

Yet, in a fully decentralised Web, servers are still required for applications which require at the same time big data and low latency. Those applications (big data processing, big transactional systems) are the main long term focus of Rapid.Space.

Does Rapid.Space allow to manage domains?

No. Please use a third party provider (for example Gandi).

Does Rapid.Space allow to manage DNS?

No. Please use a third party provider (for example Gandi).

Does Rapid.Space allow to access the "outside internet" over IPv4?

Yes, with some limitations. Outgoing IPv4 traffic must support NAT and is limited to a whitelist of destination hosts. For most applications, it is enough.

For applications that need to remove all limitations, one possibility which costs a few Euros per month is to connect Rapid.Space VM to a third party provider (ex. Online or Kimsufi) through an IPv6 tunnel and route all IPv4 traffic through this tunnel using 4in6 protocol for example.

Can I access my Rapid.Space machine over IPv4?

Yes. Rapid Space provides a global HTTP/HTTPS CDN which is accessible over IPv4 and acts as a proxy to your Rapid.Space machine over IPv6. Connecting directly via IPv6 is also possible with any protocol by configuring your incoming traffic whitelist (see Features). Both are free-of-charge.

Can I connect Rapid.Space VM to remote storage?

Yes. You can connect a Rapid.Space VM to a remote storage over IPv6 using the qemu-nbd protocol (see Features). This can be useful to install a different OS than the default Debian 10. It is also useful to mount a remote encrypted storage and copy files.

Does Rapid.Space support SMTP relaying?

No, because we do not want to host spammers and we want to save costs on anti-spam filters.

If you need SMTP relaying, please sign up with a third party hosting provider (for example Mandrill), then inquire with us regarding using SMTP over IPv6.

Can I use Rapid.Space in China?

Yes, as long as you have valid ICP license. Our global CDN has Edge nodes in mainland China with connectivity to China Unicom, China Mobile and China Telecom.

Can I contribute to Rapid.Space?

You can contribute creating a point of presence in your region, by deploying an OCP Rack at your company or inside a data centre in your region. Servers you allocate to Rapid.Space will appear under your company and region's names.