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Hetzner

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Not to be confused with xneelo, a South African company formerly known as Hetzner (Pty) Ltd.
Hetzner Online GmbH
Type of businessGesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung
Founded1997
HeadquartersGunzenhausen, Bavaria, Germany
Founder(s)Martin Hetzner
IndustryWeb hosting, SSL certificates, Colocation, Domain registration
Revenue€290M (2020)[1]
Net income€78M (2020)[1]
Employees201–500[2]
URLOfficial website Edit this at Wikidata
ASN24940 Edit this at Wikidata

Hetzner Online GmbH is a company and data center operator based in Gunzenhausen, Bavaria, in Germany.

History

[edit]

Hetzner Online GmbH began operations in Germany in 1997[3] under the name Hetzner Online Services. Between 2000 and 2015, Hetzner Online in Germany operated under the legal status AG ("Aktiengesellschaft"). In 2015, it changed its legal status to GmbH. In addition, Hetzner Online expanded its chief executive team with Stephan Konvickova and Günther Müller at the beginning of the year 2019.[4]

The company is named after its founder Martin Hetzner. Hetzner Online owns and operates four data center parks in Nuremberg[5] and Falkenstein (Germany), Tuusula (Finland),[6][7][8] Ashburn, Virginia (United States), and Hillsboro, Oregon (United States).[9] In 2024, Hetzner expanded its global footprint with a new data center in Singapore (Singapore).[10] In addition, Hetzner Online is a co-investor in the Cinia C-Lion1 project, which connected Helsinki and Rostock, Germany together with a 1,100 km long submarine fiberglass cable. The cable provides a high-speed connection between Hetzner's German and Finnish data centers.[11][12]

Services

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Hetzner Online provides dedicated hosting, shared web hosting, virtual private servers, managed servers, domain names, SSL certificates, storage boxes,[13] and cloud. At the data center parks located in Nuremberg, Falkenstein and Tuusula/Finland, customers can also connect their hardware to Hetzner Online's infrastructure and network with the company's colocation services.[14] The company operates a server auction site online where the chance to rent older dedicated servers (not purchase or colocate) are auctioned off in the form of a Dutch auction.[15]

Hetzner Online has a domain name registrar arrangement with ICANN (for registering domains under .com, .net and .org and others),[16] DENIC (for .de),[17] and nic.at (for .at).[18]

Infrastructure

[edit]

Hetzner Online's datacenter projects are coordinated and implemented in-house with as little outsourcing as possible. Data center units served by multiple redundant uplinks, including 1300 Gbit/s to DE-CIX and fiber optic links to Nuremberg and Frankfurt. Colocation facilities are sited at all data center parks in Nuremberg, Falkenstein (Vogtland) in Germany and Helsinki in Finland.[19] In 2021, a datacenter in Ashburn, Virginia, was opened, marking Hetzner's first American server.[20] By 2024, the company took a significant step by opening a datacenter in Singapore, marking Hetzner's first Singaporean server.[21]

Network

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The backbone is set up in the form of a ring network between the datacenter locations Nuremberg and Falkenstein as well as the most important Internet location, Frankfurt. All locations are connected to central exchange nodes such as DE-CIX, AMS-IX, DATA-IX and V-IX via the company's own fiber optic network.[22] All Hetzner's dedicated servers had a minimum 20 TB monthly cap for full speed on their servers with the option for an extra fee for full speed past that point. However, they have lifted the bandwidth cap on 1 Gbit/s connection speeds as of October 1, 2018.[23][24][25]

Incidents

[edit]

Hacking

[edit]

In June 2013, Hetzner Online suffered from a security breach where customer information was exposed to attackers who had compromised Hetzner Online's monitoring systems.[26][27]

Russian complaints about Glavcom.ua

[edit]

In early August 2014, the Russian Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media (Roskomnadzor) sent a demand to many news agencies prohibiting any mention of the demonstration that was being arranged in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk in support of the federalization of Siberia.[28][29] A number of such messages were sent to Ukraine, which was in the midst of undeclared war with Russian paramilitaries in the Donetsk region.[30] Since the Ukrainian online newspapers did not remove the article, Roskomnadzor sent letters to their internet providers demanding removal of the news item. Hetzner Online complied with the demands and sent a notice to glavcom.ua, saying "Please solve the problem and reply within the next 24 hours to avoid suspension. This is the final deadline."[31]

This story was widely reprinted in news sources.[32] The Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement expressing solidarity with glavcom.ua owners and journalists. Vassily Zvarych, vice-head of the Communications Department of the Foreign Ministry, gave a press conference saying that he was surprised by Hetzner Online's compliance with the Russian complaint.[33] The German chapter of Reporters Without Borders also issued a statement condemning Roskomnadzor.[34]

The notices to suspend Glavcom.ua were issued by Hetzner Online August 6, 2014; on August 10 Hetzner Online issued apologies, denying that any censorship was planned and that their technical support made a mistake, which they regretted.[35] However, by that time the story was widely published in German mass-media,[36] and Glavcom.ua already migrated from Hetzner Online to another hosting provider.[37][38]

no.spam.ee lawsuit

[edit]

In 2013, an Estonian anti-spam activist Tõnu Samuel posted a blog entry about an alleged spammer Silver Teede on his website no.spam.ee. In retaliation, Teede wrote a complaint to the blog's service provider, Hetzner Online, who decided to terminate services for the blog. In an ensuing court case, Estonian courts found the complaints to be baseless and awarded Samuel damages from Silver Teede for the loss of Samuel's servers.[39][40][41]

Duplicate Ed25519 SSH keys

[edit]

From April 2015 to December 2015, many of the OS images used by Hetzner's installation program installimage had used duplicate Ed25519 SSH keys. This could potentially mean that an attacker could use a man-in-the-middle attack to compromise an SSH connection that was using Ed25519 keys. Hetzner sent an email to all affected customers with any potentially affected servers on information about the issue, and how to fix it.[42][43]

Blocking "Novaya Gazeta"

[edit]

On January 11, 2016, Hetzner blocked the St. Petersburg site of Novaya Gazeta, the leading opposition, non-government newspaper in Russia.[44] The newspaper alleged the act was political censorship without any legal justification.[45][full citation needed]

Blocking Ukraine War information

[edit]

On March 7, 2022, during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Hetzner allegedly blocked servers belonging to a Ukrainian state-affiliated war information website (war.ukraine.ua), which was posted by the official Ukraine Twitter account.[46] Hetzner initially denied blocking the website in question, stating that Cloudflare informed them that the IP does not belong to their network. Two days later, Hetzner confirmed via a press release that they had erroneously suspended the servers due to "anomalies" found in the account by an employee, which came from a not yet fully developed "plausibility check" and stated that their actions had not been politically motivated.[47] The press release has since been deleted from the Hetzner website.

Blocking Russian Users

[edit]

In December 2023, Hetzner allegedly sent an email to its users informing them that they will be ending contractual relationship with customers from Russia. Policy was scheduled to take place on January 31, 2024. [48]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ a b "Hetzner Online GMBH, Gunzenhausen, Germany". Archived from the original on 2023-04-26. Retrieved 2023-04-26.
  2. ^ "Hetzner | LinkedIn". Archived from the original on 2024-02-06. Retrieved 2023-04-26.
  3. ^ "Company Overview of Hetzner Online AG". Businessweek. Archived from the original on June 19, 2014. Retrieved 19 June 2014.
  4. ^ "Hetzner Online expands management team". Hetzner Online GmbH. Archived from the original on 23 November 2021. Retrieved 6 May 2019.
  5. ^ Beatrix Taggart (17 May 2013). "Hetzner Online shortlisted as "New Datacentre of the Year" at the 6th International Datacentre Awards". Daily Host News. Archived from the original on 23 November 2021. Retrieved 19 June 2014.
  6. ^ Nicole Henderson (1 February 2013). "Web Host Hetzner Online Adds Colocation Services to Two German Data Centers". Web Host Industry Review. Archived from the original on 1 December 2017. Retrieved 19 June 2014.
  7. ^ "Hetzner sets foot in Finland". Good News from Finland/Finnfacts. Archived from the original on 2 September 2019. Retrieved 21 November 2017.
  8. ^ "Hetzner constructs a data center park in Tuusula, Finland". Finpro. Archived from the original on 1 December 2017. Retrieved 21 November 2017.
  9. ^ "Data centers - Hetzner Online GmbH". www.hetzner.com. Archived from the original on 2022-03-09. Retrieved 2022-01-20.
  10. ^ "Hetzner Cloud now also in Singapore". www.hetzner.com. Retrieved 2024-10-20.
  11. ^ "Submarine Data Cable to Link Germany and Finland". eco. Archived from the original on 1 December 2017. Retrieved 21 November 2017.
  12. ^ "Cinia Completes Submarine Data Cable to Link Germany and Finland". Cinea. Archived from the original on 20 September 2018. Retrieved 21 November 2017.
  13. ^ "Storage Boxes". Archived from the original on 2019-09-06. Retrieved 2017-11-21.
  14. ^ "About us". Archived from the original on 2022-03-12. Retrieved 2017-11-21.
  15. ^ "Server auction - Hetzner Online GmbH". www.hetzner.com. Archived from the original on 2022-04-30. Retrieved 2020-03-24.
  16. ^ "ICANN-Accredited Registrars". Archived from the original on 2019-05-05. Retrieved 2014-09-23.
  17. ^ "List of DENIC Members". Archived from the original on 2015-09-05. Retrieved 2014-09-11.
  18. ^ "Registrar-Liste". nic.at. Archived from the original on 2017-01-18. Retrieved 2014-09-11.
  19. ^ "Data centers". 2017-11-21. Archived from the original on 2022-03-09. Retrieved 2017-11-21.
  20. ^ "Truly thrifty cloud hosting - Hetzner Online GmbH". Hetzner Online GmbH. Archived from the original on 17 November 2021. Retrieved 17 November 2021.
  21. ^ "Hetzner Cloud now also in Singapore". www.hetzner.com. Retrieved 2024-10-20.
  22. ^ "Secure Modern Network Infrastructure". 21 November 2017. Archived from the original on 15 May 2016. Retrieved 21 November 2017.
  23. ^ "ALL HETZNER DEDICATED SERVERS NOW HAVE REAL UNLIMITED TRAFFIC". PlexGuide.com. 2018-10-01. Archived from the original on 2020-11-09. Retrieved 2018-12-24.
  24. ^ "Hetzner Dedicated Servers now with real unlimited traffic". LowEndTalk. 2018-10-01. Archived from the original on 2018-12-24. Retrieved 2018-12-24.
  25. ^ "Traffic/en - Hetzner DokuWiki". Hetzner.de. Archived from the original on 2018-12-29. Retrieved 2018-12-24.
  26. ^ Fabian Scherschel (7 June 2013). "Hetzner web hosting service hacked, customer data copied". The H. Archived from the original on 26 February 2023. Retrieved 19 June 2014.
  27. ^ Nicole Henderson (7 June 2013). "Hetzner Security Breach Exposes Customer Passwords, Payment Information". Web Host Industry Review. Archived from the original on 21 June 2014. Retrieved 19 June 2014.
  28. ^ "BBC: "Блог редактора: Артем Лоскутов и "федерализация Сибири"". Archived from the original on 2015-05-21. Retrieved 2019-12-21.
  29. ^ "BBC World Service statement regarding interview with Artem Loskutov". Archived from the original on 2020-06-05. Retrieved 2019-12-21.
  30. ^ "Bloomberg: Ukraine in 'Undeclared War' With Russia as Rebels Unite". Bloomberg News. Archived from the original on 2015-01-08. Retrieved 2017-03-07.
  31. ^ "Немцы заблокируют «Главком» за то, что он не удалил статью по требованию Роскомнадзора". 6 August 2014. Archived from the original on 2014-08-10. Retrieved 2014-08-07.
  32. ^ Gathmann, Moritz (8 August 2014). "Webhoster Hetzner: Deutsche Firma hilft russischer Medienaufsicht bei Zensur". Der Spiegel. Archived from the original on 2022-10-27. Retrieved 2014-08-11.
  33. ^ "МИД Украины удивлен позицией немецкого хостера, согласившегося с Роскомнадзором". Archived from the original on 2014-08-09. Retrieved 2014-08-09.
  34. ^ "Russische Zensurversuche im Ausland". Archived from the original on 2014-08-09. Retrieved 2014-08-09.
  35. ^ "Human rights in Ukraine: Russian censor will not be allowed to block Glavkom". Archived from the original on 2014-08-12. Retrieved 2014-08-11.
  36. ^ "The Truth About Hetzner Censoring Glavcom". root-services.net. 9 August 2014. Archived from the original on 2014-09-03.
  37. ^ "Роскомсвобода: Немецкий хостер хотел заблокировать украинский сайт по требованию Роскомнадзора, но извинился". Archived from the original on 2014-08-12. Retrieved 2014-08-11.
  38. ^ "Glavcom.ua: Немецкий хостер отказался блокировать «Главком» и извинился перед редакцией". Archived from the original on 2014-08-12. Retrieved 2014-08-11.
  39. ^ Hans Lõugas (29 October 2013). "Laimaja peab sotsiaalmeedias vabandust paluma". Eesti Päevaleht. Archived from the original on 10 August 2014. Retrieved 7 August 2014.
  40. ^ Sander Silm (28 October 2013). "Netilaimaja peab maksma Tõnu Samuelile 11 150 eurot". Õhtuleht. Archived from the original on 12 August 2014. Retrieved 7 August 2014.
  41. ^ Silver Meikar (17 June 2013). "Silver Meikar: avatus ja läbipaistvus taastaks usalduse". Postimees. Archived from the original on 8 August 2014. Retrieved 7 August 2014.
  42. ^ "Ed25519/en – Hetzner DokuWiki". wiki.hetzner.de. Archived from the original on 5 June 2020. Retrieved 16 April 2020.
  43. ^ "Duplicate ED25519 SSH Host Keys at Hetzner". blogs.intevation.de. Archived from the original on 11 May 2021. Retrieved 16 April 2020.
  44. ^ "Немецкий провайдер заблокировал сайт «Новой газеты в Петербурге»". 11 January 2016. Archived from the original on 2022-10-27. Retrieved 2016-01-11.
  45. ^ "Осторожно, цензура!". Archived from the original on 2016-01-09. Retrieved 2016-01-11.
  46. ^ "Ukraine / Україна on Twitter". Twitter. Archived from the original on 2022-03-10. Retrieved 2022-03-10.
  47. ^ "Statement Concerning The Website war.ukraine.ua". www.hetzner.com. Archived from the original on 2022-03-09. Retrieved 2022-03-10.
  48. ^ "Hetzner will block users from Russia - posted by one of the users". Low End Talk.
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