Skip to content
Register

Contabo's fake London location?

VPS Hosting by haroldgsm 8 replies 506 views
haroldgsm

Member OP

Grumpy Old Sysadmin

#1

Back when I started in this business, "African VPS" meant a dusty colo in Cairo with power issues twice a week. These days every boutique shop claims a ZA presence. I wanted Nextcloud close to my in-laws in Pretoria, so I spun up a 4GB Contabo instance last month.

Peering to Europe surprised me. 140ms to London, stable. Better than the 180ms I measured from their so-called "Cape Town" node three years back. Kids these days think latency is a solved problem.

The twist: Contabo's "London" IP geolocates to London on every database I checked. MaxMind, IP2Location, all of them. Traceroute dies at a Tier-1 in Frankfurt. Either they're tunneling or the IP block was reassigned and nobody updated the registry.

My family in Pretoria gets 90ms. Works fine for photos. Mark my words, this "local presence" fiction will collapse the moment someone needs actual data residency compliance.

IPv4, IRC, and irssi — fight me
PacketpunkUma

Member

4 #2

CONTABO DID THE SAME TO ME IN "LONDON"!! ROUTED THROUGH LONDON THE WHOLE TIME!! CHECK THE ASN!! BURNT ME FOR $40!! 💀

ALWAYS RUN MTR BEFORE YOU PAY!! ALWAYS!!

bellaauc

Member

3-2-1 Believer

12 #3

Oh dear, that's frustrating but at least it's working for your family Did you test your restore? I always worry about family setups—if that drive goes, those photos are gone.

3-2-1 checklist for your Nextcloud:

  • 3 copies (server + local + offsite)
  • 2 different media types
  • 1 offline or cloud backup

I use HostHatch cold storage for the offsite copy. Cheap, slow, perfect for archives. Test your restore quarterly—family won't forgive you if Christmas 2019 disappears.

3-2-1 or you're already dead
quinnbizz

Member

#4

Geolocation is not geography. Never was.

...
hankels

Member

52 VPS and counting

#5

I run 52 boxes and this is why I stopped trusting location labels

Contabo UK: €6/GB RAM, "London" latency
OVHcloud ZA: €8/GB RAM, actual 45ms to JNB
Hetzner ZA: €4/GB RAM, routes through Dubai somehow??

  • Pretoria family = OVHcloud wins
  • Your wallet = Hetzner until it doesn't
  • Your sanity = who knows

I keep a spreadsheet. The $/GB/RAM lies. Add $/actual-ms-to-target and everything changes.

seedbox, NAS, tape, and three offsite
quinnbizz

Member

#6

IMO, take it with a grain of salt, but IP geolocation databases lag reality by months sometimes. YMMV depending on which API the service uses. The actual routing matters more than the label for home use.

If your in-laws are happy with 90ms, the technical inaccuracy might not matter. For compliance, though, you'd need to verify the physical presence directly with the provider. Most will tell you if you ask the right questions.

...
FlowSana

Member

SRE

#7

Analysis of the situation:

1. IP geolocation relies on RIR delegation records and commercial database aggregation. MaxMind GeoLite2 updates weekly; accuracy for European allocations is approximately 60-70% at city level.
2. Contabo's AS likely acquired a UK-registered netblock previously used in DE. RIPE WHOIS shows last-modified dates often trailing actual deployment by 90-180 days.
3. Latency 90ms London-Amsterdam is consistent with fiber via UK-EU backhaul. Actual LHR-FRA direct path: ~15ms. Your 90ms suggests either measurement error or a local cache node.

Practical recommendation: Request Contabo's datacenter certification (ISO 27001 scope document) if data residency matters. For family photos, verify backup integrity with `occ files:scan` weekly and maintain external snapshot replication.

It's always DNS. Always.
quinnbizz

Member

#8

Which kernel did the London box ship with?

...
AD

Member

#9

I had the same routing issue in london once

Post a reply

You need an account to reply. Log in or register to join the conversation.

Post reply Preview Save draft