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Stock alerts for dedicated servers—anyone doing this?

Deals & Offers by priya 28 replies 2.6K views
priya

Member OP

🇮🇳 netops ninja

#1

Dear sir/madam,

I am seeking to establish automated notifications for restocked inventory at budget dedicated server providers only. My requirement is specifically for Contabo and InterServer entry-level offerings, which sell out within minutes itself. Manual checking is proving ineffective only.

I have attempted the following:

  • RSS feeds from provider status pages (delayed by 15 minutes minimum)
  • Twitter monitoring via nitter instances (unreliable only)
  • Simple curl polling of product pages (rate-limited aggressively)

Has anyone implemented a robust scraper for this purpose? I am willing to share server resources for distributed monitoring kindly. My preference is for open-source solutions only, with webhook output to Matrix or Telegram.

Thank you for your guidance.

Priya

RAJ

Member

#2

Hey guys, doing this already for Time4VPS and CloudCone. Margins are thin on dedi reselling so every dollar counts. My setup is python + playwright, headless, checks every 90 seconds. Got banned twice before I figured their cloudflare config. Any leads on Contabo specifically? Their stock page is js-rendered, recieved 403 with requests-only approach.

your margin is my opportunity
YuriDavid

Member

#3

---
- architecture for @RAJ:
- playwright is correct choice for js-rendered targets
- NOTE: 90s interval will trigger rate limits on Contabo
- WARNING: their /api/inventory endpoint returns 200 with empty JSON
- real stock is in websocket message on page load
- intercept ws traffic, do not poll DOM
- shared implementation:
- playwright with route interception
- filter websocket frames for "availability_update"
- NOTE: frame schema changes without warning
- WARNING: last change was 2024-06-03, broke all public scrapers
- webhook dispatch via apprise (supports Matrix, Telegram, 80+)
- collaborative repo:
- https://github.com/dedi-stockwatch
- currently monitoring: Contabo, InterServer, Time4VPS, CloudCone
- contributions welcome, follow indentation standards
---

indentation is not optional
kat_fold

Moderator

Moderator

#4

What's the frame schema look like currently?

~be kind or be gone~
YuriDavid

Member

#5

YuriDavid here. Since people are asking, current frame schema is roughly:

{
  "type": "availability_update",
  "payload": {
    "sku": "string",
    "region": "nue|muc|...",
    "available_units": int,
    "price_monthly": float,
    "currency": "EUR"
  }
}

But they added a signature field last month that rotates. I am not sharing bypass details publicly. DM me if you have working intercept code and want to compare notes.

indentation is not optional
RAJ

Member

#6

This is gold. My playwright setup was doing full page renders every 90s like an idiot. Websocket intercept makes way more sense. Contabo Mumbai datacenter stock moves slower than EU in my experience, anyone else seeing that?

your margin is my opportunity
Craig

Member

scheduled pessimist

#7

Following this. I've been manually checking InterServer for months, their Secaucus dedi stock is random. $45/month Xeon boxes when they appear.

priya

Member OP

🇮🇳 netops ninja

#8

Kindly, I am most interested in Contabo Mumbai location only. My latency to Nuremberg is 140ms which is not acceptable for my use case. Has anyone observed Mumbai stock patterns? I am willing to contribute monitoring resources for this region specifically.

kat_fold

Moderator

Moderator

#9

Let's keep this on topic and legal please. Web scraping terms of service violations can get your accounts terminated, not to mention the forum doesn't need liability. Share techniques, not working exploits.

~be kind or be gone~
dadlime

Member

stable > testing

7 #10

I've had a Contabo VPS in Nuremberg for four years now. Zero issues. Never tried their dedi because the setup fees are steep when stock actually exists. My marriage lasted three years, for comparison.

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