Skip to content
fastnode_
Portal
menu

legal

Acceptable Use Policy

You get root. With that comes responsibility for what your server does to the rest of the internet. Effective 27 October 2026.

Scope

This policy applies to every server, IP address and account provided by FastNode Ltd, and to anyone using them, including your own customers and users. It forms part of our Terms of Service. You are responsible for activity on your servers whether you started it, a user of yours did, or an attacker did after compromising your system.

Illegal and harmful content

You must not use our services to store, transmit or facilitate:

  • anything unlawful under the law of England and Wales, or the law where the content is targeted;
  • child sexual abuse material, which we report to the relevant authorities without notice to you;
  • material that infringes copyright, trade marks or other intellectual property;
  • terrorist content, incitement to violence, or harassment and threats against individuals;
  • malware distribution, exploit kits, or command-and-control infrastructure;
  • phishing pages, fake shops, or any content designed to deceive people into handing over credentials or money.

Email and the port 25 policy

Outbound connections to port 25 are blocked by default on every new server. This protects the reputation of our IP ranges, which every customer shares the benefit of. Most applications should send through an authenticated relay on port 587 or 465, which is not blocked.

If you need to run your own mail server, request an unblock from the portal. We may ask what you intend to send, check the address for existing listings, and decline or reverse the unblock if we see problems. Once unblocked, you must:

  • set a valid reverse DNS (PTR) record matching your sending hostname, which you can do in the portal;
  • publish SPF, DKIM and DMARC for the domains you send from;
  • send only to recipients who have asked to hear from you, with a working unsubscribe for bulk mail;
  • process bounces and complaints, and remove addresses that fail;
  • never send through open relays, and never run one yourself.

Unsolicited bulk email is prohibited whatever server it is sent from. Advertising a site hosted with us in spam sent elsewhere is also a breach.

Network abuse

You must not use our network to:

  • launch denial-of-service attacks, or run booter or stresser services;
  • scan, probe or attempt to access systems you do not own or have written permission to test;
  • forge packet headers or source addresses, or announce IP space you do not control;
  • run open DNS resolvers, open proxies or open NTP or memcached services reachable from the internet;
  • operate public Tor exit nodes, because abuse complaints about exit traffic are impossible for us to resolve.

Authorised security testing of your own systems, or of systems whose owner has given you written permission, is fine. Keep the evidence of permission and be ready to show it if we receive a complaint.

Fair use of resources

Traffic on every plan is unmetered. CPU, memory and disk are yours to use as allocated. The network and storage underneath are shared, though, so we may limit a server whose activity is degrading service for others, for example sustained disk I/O that saturates a storage node. We will contact you first wherever we can and help you find a plan that fits.

Cryptocurrency mining is not allowed. It holds every core at full load indefinitely and is a common sign of a compromised server.

Security of your server

Keep your operating system and software patched, use strong authentication, and close services you do not need. If your server is compromised and starts attacking others, we treat it the same as deliberate abuse until it is cleaned up. We may isolate it from the network and leave the portal console available so you can investigate and repair it.

How we handle complaints

Report abuse involving our network to [email protected] with "Abuse" in the subject, including timestamps with time zones, source IP addresses and log extracts. When we receive a credible report about your server, we:

  1. forward it to you and ask you to respond, normally within 24 hours;
  2. check that the issue has stopped;
  3. suspend the affected service if you do not respond, if the issue continues, or immediately if the activity is causing serious ongoing harm or is clearly illegal.

Repeated or severe breaches may lead to termination of your account without refund. Where the law requires it, we cooperate with law enforcement, and we may preserve data relevant to an investigation.

Changes

We update this policy as threats change. Material changes will be emailed to account holders before they apply. The current version always lives at this address.