As a truly international company, Gandi has accepted payment, across all of our business units, in Euros, US Dollars, British Pounds Sterling, and more recently New Taiwan Dollars, Chinese Yuan and Swiss Francs, via credit card, bank transfer and PayPal.

But we think of ourselves first and foremost as a member of another community that's separate from the mechanisms of financial markets and which transcends national boundaries. Yes, we come from France originally, we have offices in Luxembourg, Taiwan and the US, but at heart, we are citizens of the Internet.

So that's why we're excited to join other progressive vendors of online services in helping our customers break their dependency on both big banks and fiat currency by adding payment by Bitcoin—the only currency guaranteed by an international series of tubes—to the payment methods we accept.

So, to use Bitcoin to pay for your next purchase from Gandi, you will just need to select "BTC" as the payment method. You'll then be redirected to our Bitcoin partner's site where you'll get a QR-code to scan in order to complete payment.

You can also add funds to your prepaid account via Bitcoin. Our provider will make the conversion for us to the currency you use for your account.

Questions? We're @gandibar on Twitter, and our support team is here to help.

Simple Hosting, our Platform-as-a-Service hosting option, now supports npm start scripts, a function currently used by nearly all pre-packaged Node.JS applications that also promises to offer greater functionality to advanced Simple Hosting users.

Until now, you needed to put a 'server.js' file on the root of your project in order for your application to boot correctly. Now you have added flexibility and control, specifically over the way your application starts up using a `package.json` file.

You can, then, define the point of entry of your application with `package.json["main"]` :

//package.json
{
  "name" : "foo",
  "version" : "1.2.3",
  "description" : "A packaged foo fooer for fooing foos",
  "main" : "index.js",
}

In the above example, the index.js file is used to boot your application with node.

The other option is to define a command to launch on start-up of your application with `package.json["scripts"]["start"]`

// package.json
{
  "name" : "foo",
  "version" : "1.2.3",
  "description" : "A packaged foo fooer for fooing foos",
  "scripts": {
    "start": "node index.js"
  }
}

Careful readers may have already discerned, correctly, that this means access to the launch parameters of the node process. This means, for example, that you can use ES6, the newest version of JavaScript, and all the latest features that entails, on your instance

//package.json
{
  "engines": {
    "node": ">=0.12"
  },
  "scripts": {
    "start": "node --harmony app.js"
  }
}

This new functionality allows you also to take environment variables into account with the start command. Previously, this was only possible from the application itself.

// package.json
{
  ...
  "scripts": {
    "start": "NODE_ENV=staging node app.js"
 }
}

You can use this functionality to manage your application's processes yourself, with process managers like pm2.

We recommend taking a look at our wiki to see more examples of both basic and advanced uses.

If you already have a Node.js instance, this update doesn't require any change. To take advantage of the new functionalities, you just need to delete or rename `server.js` and configure `package.json` to start up according to your customization.

Of course, for your next project, we recommend starting off using these new features.

These changes will become permanent on December 1, 2015 when priority will be given to instructions found in the `package.json` file. The file `server.js` will only be referenced from that point on as a last resort.

Want to try Node.js on a Simple Hosting instance? Try a free five-day trial.

What do a slice of New York style pizza off the street, a single song off iTunes, a junior cheeseburger deluxe, and a can of spam have in common?

It's a pretty prestigious list and it's all things you can buy for a dollar. And you can now add a one-month subscription to the new Gandi Site HTML5 web editing tool to the list.

Recently, we updated our Gandi Site software to version 7 and the Gandi Site interface is now sleek and modern, with new functionality and above all the upgrade to responsive design. For those unfamiliar with the concept, this means that in version 7 of Gandi Site, you can design a single site that will adapt automatically to the context it's being viewed in. That is, the layout adapts to whether the site is being viewed in a desktop browser, on a smartphone, or on a tablet.

If you're not familiar with Gandi Site, it's what's called a what-you-see-is-what-you-get (or WYSIWYG for short) editor. Which means you don't necessarily have to be able to write code or HTML to be able to design your site with this tool. We offer a few service pack tiers, starting with the "free" pack which is included with the registration of a domain name.

At this level, Gandi Site is a great option if you want to put up a static "Under Construction" or "Coming soon" type of page for a more expansive site you intend to put online later, or for things like putting up your résumé online.

More more comprehensive uses, like a site for your store or business, or even just a personal site or to put your portfolio online, for example, there are a few other tiers available as well: Personal, Professional, and Business. For more information, we suggest this page.

From now until September 30, 2015, you can try out the new Gandi Site for just $1.00, regardless of the pack you choose (you should note that these service tiers are otherwise subject to tiered pricing).

Not only that, but if after that first month trial you love it more than that can of spam you would have bought otherwise, you can commit for a whole year and get an additional 15% discount.

In summary, we're not saying you shouldn't buy any of those other things that cost just a dollar, but we are saying that a month's subscription to Gandi Site is at least as valuable as a junior cheeseburger deluxe or a single song off iTunes (though the jury is still out on that slice of pizza), so why not try it out?

Following the launch of Gandi's Asia office in July 2014, Gandi.net is now expanding into the Asian market. 

We have hired and trained a local Taiwan customer service team, who immediately got to work and translated the entire Gandi.net web site to Traditional and Simplified Chinese. This team is multi-lingual, and offers support for all our customers, worldwide, from the Taiwan time zone, extending our support hours to 24x6+.

Gandi now has direct timely support and services for our customers in China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand. Anyone needing localized support services for domain name portfolios from the Asian zone can use Gandi, and pay for the services in New Taiwan Dollars (TWD), in Taiwan and Chinese Yuan (CNY) in China.

We are also expanding our technical footprint, with a mini-pop (a network Point-of-Presence) installed in Tokyo since February of this year. Using anycast technology, this enhancement keeps DNS traffic in Asia, and boosts performance of DNS queries by 30% in the region.

We are adding domains to the new organization too. The TLDs .TW and .CN, which Gandi was only able to offer via an intermediary, are now offered direct to all our customers, thanks to our presence in Asia and our direct accreditation. 

If you happen to be in the region, get in touch with our team! We are regulars at the Taipei Hackerspace meetups , and at conferences such as Pycon APAC, held from the 5th to 8th June.

You can also find Gandi Asia on Twitter: 

• @gandi_asia
• and @gandi_tw,
• on Facebook,
• and Weibo!

As usual, the customer care team is available to your questions, comments and suggestions. You can reach us at feedback@gandi.net

.

We have started to renew and upgrade the SSL certificates used for the Simple Hosting admin interfaces.

Instances in Paris (FR) and Baltimore (US) are already serving the new SHA2 certificates on addresses such as https://.admin.dc{0,1}.gpaas.net.

Instances hosted in our Bissen (LU) datacenter will also be upgraded soon.

This update should be transparent to our customers (similar to the change affecting SFTP signatures last September), but our support team is ready to help. Please contact us should you experience any trouble connecting to your instances' admin interfaces.

On a related note, if you're interested in adding SSL to your Simple Hosting instance, see how on our support wiki: How to install an SSL certificate on your Simple Hosting instance

1000 birthday presents an hour, don't miss our 15th anniversary game!

After studying how our IaaS services are used, and evaluating how they are priced, we have decided to cut prices and simplify the pricing model. As of 02/19/2015, you will be able to save up to 40%, depending on your usage pattern.

We aren't just cutting prices across the board. There is a boost in capacity for bigger users, too. The prior limit of 500GB of free outbound traffic per month is now lifted to 2 TB (4 times as much!) per month. Of course you can still use more, we just ask you to pay a bit for really extreme loads over 2 TB/month. This higher limit is possible due to investments we have made in optimizing our infrastructure, and we are passing the benefits on to you. Also, as IPv4 has become more expensive, the price of an IPv4 interface has actually gone up, while IPv6 is (and always was) free. Also, a vCPU is now $0.004 / €0.0033 per hour, and we no longer charge more if you don't use as many - it's just a flat, predictable cost per unit.

If you are a heavy user of Gandi Cloud hosting, you will see a big drop in your overall cost of ownership. Smaller footprint users will see smaller benefits, proportionally.

Also, on top of the recent fluctuations in currency values between the US dollar and the Euro, we have decreased credit prices in USD by 7.5%.

Here's some examples of pricing in dollars / euros for typical configurations (based on buying a 2 Millions credit pack):

• 1 CPU + 1GB RAM + 20GB disk + 1 IPV4: from $17.30 / €13.31 (264 credits / hour) to $13.79 / €12.67 (220 cr / h) per month
• 2 CPU + 2GB RAM + 50GB disk + 1 IPV4: from $33.28 / €25.60 to $23.95 / €19.96 per month
• 4 CPU + 4GB RAM + 200GB disk + 1 IPV4: from $72.73 / €55.94 to $49.71 / €41.43 per month

If you choose only IPv6, you can save even more, and end up paying less than 10 dollars a month for a server:

• 1 CPU + 1GB RAM + 20GB + 1 IPV6 would cost $9.56 / €7.96 per month.

If you recently purchased a bunch of credits, dont' worry! You will still benefit from these changes, since your credits will last that much longer.

Check out the full cost breakdown here. If you have questions, please contact our support team.

We want to help, and we want your feedback, so be sure to let us know what you think at feedback@gandi.net, any time.

Happy provisioning!

We have released a new version of our server management scripts and invite all Gandi Server users to update the `gandi-hosting-vm2` package. Version 2.5-1 contains several improvements for both Xen and HVM platforms.

You'll find more details in the Changelog (below). In a nutshell, these are some the improvements you might notice:

• Fixed a bug that created oddly named files at the system's root (see swap and untar in the changelog)
• Improved boot speed (related to the bug fix)
• Better network interface configuration
• Better handling of configuration variables

You can follow these steps to update the package on your distribution:

On Debian / Ubuntu 

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install gandi-hosting-vm2

On Fedora / RedHat / CentOS

sudo yum update gandi-hosting-vm2

On Mandriva / Mageia

sudo urpmi gandi-hosting-vm2

You should then copy the new configuration files or merge the new contents with your existing files, by comparing the old and the new versions.

You can use the following command to get the new file list:

On Debian / Ubuntu

find /etc -type f -iname "*.dpkg-dist"

On distributions that use ''rpm''

find /etc -type f -iname "*.rpmnew"

With this new version of the package, the main network interface (eth0) is no longer configured via DHCP by default. If you still want to use DHCP, you just have to remove the name of the main network interface (eth0) from the CONFIG_NODHCP' variable setting in the config file located at "/etc/default/gandi" (or /etc/sysconfig/gandi depending on your distribution).

You should get:

# /etc/default/gandi or /etc/sysconfig/gandi

CONFIG_NODHCP="eth0" # to disable DHCP on the listed interfaces

Or:

# /etc/default/gandi or /etc/sysconfig/gandi

CONFIG_NODHCP="" # to enable DHCP on all interfaces, including eth0

If you have any trouble, please contact our support team (http://www.gandi.net/support/contact/mail) or join our staff and other customers on #gandi, on the Freenode IRC network.

--

CHANGELOG

• Resize: fixing device name when resizing main disk on hvm
• Use CONFIG_* we need to source the default file in gandi-mount initscript.
• If device is swap, do not try to untar configuration from it. This speeds up boot in some cases.
• Do not show error on link up if iface is not ready.
• Link up the net iface in all cases.
• Route IPv4 using the first net iface available.
• Fix default route configuration.
• Use detected version of ip command everywhere.
• dhclient does not rewrite the resolv.conf file when attaching a dhcp-enabled interface, CONFIG_NAMESERVER is checked.
• SSH management key has been removed from images and from the package.
• Re-add action for variable CONFIG_SYSCTL

IRC is a big part of the culture at Gandi. Our internal IRC server is where most of our internal communication occurs. Those who have proposed we migrate to one of those fancy new hosted chat services have been slapped around a bit with a large trout. You'll have to pry it out of our cold, dead hands. Our precioussss...

In addition to our internal IRC network, we also have a couple of public IRC channels, though we don't advertise them too much: #gandi-mail and #gandi-hosting have been active on the Freenode network for years.

Why #gandi-mail and #gandi-hosting, instead of just #gandi?

If you've ever tried to join #gandi on Freenode just to see if it existed, you'll have been disappointed. That was because until now, #gandi was a private channel, protected with a password and used only by Gandi staff to discuss top secret plans to take over the world and other important things.

That's about to change!

Welcome to #gandi

We've moved our internal discussion to a different channel and removed the password: #gandi is now open to all! \o/

If you already have an IRC client installed, click here, or configure it manually using the information below:

Server: irc.freenode.net
Port: 6667 (SSL Port: 6697)
Channel: #gandi

People who don't have an IRC client installed can use Freenode webchat.

Not an official support channel

IRC has never been an official way of contacting our support team, though you will often find Gandi developers and support agents there, as well as a contingent of helpful Gandi customers and friends. It's a great way to get a quick answer to general questions and status checks.

If you're able to solve your problem thanks to the people in this channel, great! Otherwise, the only official way to get help is to open a ticket or contact us via live chat from within your account.

For more information, including channel guidelines, see the Gandi community repo on GitHub.

We <3 Freenode

Freenode is an IRC network providing discussion facilities for the Free and Open Source Software communities, not-for-profit organizations, and related communities.

We embrace the Freenode culture, and we're proud to provide their domain names and SSL certificates since 2011.

Just over a year after their release, we've upgraded our private VLAN feature to make it even easier to use.

It was already possible to create your networks and isolate your servers by configuring your systems and network interfaces manually.

Now, thanks to the new version, you can create your private networks directly from the hosting management interface in your Gandi account or with the ever-more-delightful Gandi CLI, no extra configuration needed.

To get started, just choose a data center and a name for your new private VLAN, then link private network interfaces to the servers of your choice. Interfaces and servers will be automatically configured to communicate with each other without any further setup needed on your part. By default, our platform will assign the IP addresses automatically, but you can also configure the subnet mask and gateway if you're so inclined.

One common use case for private networks is to isolate one or more public servers (for a web application, for example) from a database server or cluster, only exposing the application servers to the internet. These private interfaces can have up to 200 MB/s of bandwidth, making private connections much faster than public ones.

The PVLAN feature is available at no additional charge.

Get started with your first PVLAN today with these tutorials on our wiki:

• Getting started with Gandi Private VLANs
• Create a Private Network with Gandi CLI (VLAN)

If you have questions, let us know.

Enjoy, and don't hesitate to send us your feedback on this new feature!