Question 1

How do I get my access data?

Accepted Answer

Placing an order and sending the initial payment are the basic requirements to start the setup process. As soon as we receive your order and initial payment, we will start processing your order. You will receive your access authorization from us by e-mail immediately after the order processing and creation of your Contabo Customer Control Panel account.

Question 2

Do you run your own Data Centers and where are they located?

Accepted Answer

Yes, we operate our own Data Centers in 2 Regions: the European Union and the United States. In our EU Location we run Data Centers in Munich (EU1) and Nuremberg (EU2), while in our US Location we run a Data Center in St. Louis (USA1). Since the demand for our services is growing around the world, we continue to open new Regions and Data Centers.

Question 3

How can I contact your support in case of an inquiry?

Accepted Answer

Should you have any pre-sales inquiry about our products or if you face an issue with your Contabo server, you can contact our

Question 4

Is Premium Support available?

Accepted Answer

In Contabo we treat every customer as a king, so you don’t have to pay for Premium Support to get one.

Question 5

Do you offer rewards for recommending you to my friends?

Accepted Answer

We offer an

Question 6

How long does the provisioning take and is there a way to track progress?

Accepted Answer

We try to set up your order as quickly as possible, but it depends on the payment method and the software image chosen. Choosing Credit Card or PayPal let us start provisioning instantly. VPS, Virtual Dedicated Servers and Webspace plans are usually set up within minutes, but it may take up to 3 hours in case of some software images. The setup of Dedicated Servers can take up to 48 hours (on workdays), depending on your individual configuration and hardware availability.

Question 7

What does the Port speed information in your offers mean exactly?

Accepted Answer

The Port speed (for example 1 Gbit/s) defines the maximum speed you can use for transferring data to and from your server. This is basically how fast the Network Interface Card in your Dedicated Server (or virtualized part of it in VPS and VDS) can transfer data. This should not be confused with a Unlimited Bandwidth. Should you require that, please check our Networking Add-Ons. By default, we guarantee Unlimited Traffic at an average of 100 Mbit/s to and from your server. For more details, please have a look at the specific terms of our offers.

Question 8

How can I check the current status of your Data Centers or whether there are any service interruptions?

Accepted Answer

You can inform yourself about the current status of our Data Centers on the website

Question 9

I want to buy a signed SSL Certificate, can I do that with you?

Accepted Answer

We can offer a signed SSL Certificate at a price of 74.99 EUR or a wildcard SSL certificate (includes all subdomains as well) at a price of 224.99 EUR. Please keep in mind that the signature of each SSL certificate is always valid for 12 or 24 months. This period will not be automatically extended, but we will remind you about the renewal. You can order an SSL certificate together with your desired product on our website, or you can order it separately at a later date via

Question 10

How can I order a new product as an existing client?

Accepted Answer

If you already are one of our customers, please use your Contabo Customer Control Panel to place additional orders of new services. You will then be redirected to our website where you can select the products you want to purchase and complete the order process in just a few quick steps. All necessary information regarding your existing account will be pre-filled by our system.

Question 11

How do I order upgrades for existing products?

Accepted Answer

You can order upgrades for existing products at any time through your Contabo Customer Control Panel. Just click on “Manage” besides the VPS you want to upgrade and select “Upgrade VPS”. Further information will be provided in the pop-up menu. Should you want to upgrade a Virtual Dedicated Server or a Dedicated Server, then please

Question 12

Does my Server or Webspace at Contabo come with a DDoS Protection?

Accepted Answer

Yes. All our Servers and Webspace Packages are provided with a DDoS Protection by default. Our customers don't have to take any actions in order to benefit from it - the Contabo DDoS Protection is activated for all of our customers automatically and free of charge. We work continuously on further improving so our protection system can repel many different attacks. However, like any other DDoS protection, our protection system cannot provide a guarantee that any DDoS attack imaginable will be repelled. More information about our

Question 13

What are the rules regarding Traffic in Contabo?

Accepted Answer

In Contabo we will never charge you extra for your traffic. The traffic package is already included in your server. Generally the full port speed is provided to you anytime. In case your server has an uplink faster than 100 Mbit/s and the average traffic consumption continuously exceeds 100 Mbit/s over a timespan of at least 10 days the connection is switched to 100 Mbit/s to make sure you will stay within your traffic package and will not incur any fees.

Question 14

What is a Virtual Dedicated Server (VDS)? What is the difference between VPS, VDS and Dedicated Server?

Accepted Answer

In order to give you an idea on what a Virtual Dedicated Server (VDS) is, let‘s start with a rough explanation on VPS and Dedicated Servers. In terms of software usage, you will not recognize a difference; you have full root access to both VPS and Dedicated Servers. The difference is in the usage of hardware resources. 
VPS are maintained in a shared, virtualized environment, which means multiple VPS run on one host server system and share CPU cores and RAM, for example. The access to CPU cores and RAM is guaranteed, but sharing the hardware components between the multiple VPS still introduces a latency of only milliseconds in some situations and means that there could be some impact of one VPS over another. In Contabo we work hard to minimize this „noisy neighbors“ effect, but it‘s never fully possible. This has no visible impact on most applications, but, for example, game servers, VoIP servers, or low-latency trading applications can have suboptimal performance on VPS. 
With a Dedicated Server you get a physical machine with all hardware components dedicated only to your applications. All the hardware components are dedicated to you and not shared with anyone. There is no virtualization and thus all hardware components respond immediately and can interact with each other without the loss of milliseconds. Because of the components‘ capability to interact with each other directly, a Dedicated Server is superior to VPS when it comes to the usage of real-time sensitive applications which need quick CPU and RAM response times. You can use Dedicated Servers to run your own virtual machines, while nested virtualization is not possible on VPS. 
So, and now what about VDS? Virtual Dedicated Servers bring together advantages of Dedicated Servers and VPS. By means of virtualization multiple VDS exist on a host server system the same way as VPS, but each Virtual Dedicated Server has its own dedicated hardware resources, so computing power ready to be used only for your own applications without sharing between different VDS. Because of this, VDS can be fully used for any kind of virtualization projects and support real-time sensitive applications perfectly. Moreover, VDS come with additional VNC access and can be provided as quickly as VPS. Not worth mentioning it, but you, of course, have full root access to a VDS, too.

Question 15

Can I order additional IP addresses for my VPS / Virtual Dedicated Server / Dedicated Server?

Accepted Answer

It is possible to order additional IPv4 addresses for VPS, Virtual Dedicated Server and Dedicated Server. For new servers you can order additional IP addresses in the product configurator on our website, or later on by contacting our support team by e-mail.

Question 16

I do not remember my Server password or want to change a Server password, how to proceed?

Accepted Answer

There are various reasons which make it necessary to change an existing server password or create a new one. That is why we provide a task in the Contabo Customer Control Panel, which you can use to create a new password only for the user "root" (Linux) or "Administrator" (Windows). The task "Password reset" is available in our

Question 17

Is it possible to order FTP Storage space, so that I can back up my data somewhere else?

Accepted Answer

Sure! We offer additional FTP Storage as an Add-On in different sizes which can be ordered either directly with your server or later by contacting our

Question 18

Is it possible to host my servers in different Regions?

Accepted Answer

Yes, this is possible for most of our services. We currently offer a choice between European Union (Germany) and United States (Missouri). You can select the Region in the product configuration during the order process.

Frequently Asked Questions

General Questions

Billing-related Questions

Domain-related Questions

Software-related Questions

Questions regarding the 2-factor authentication for the Contabo Customer Control Panel

Webhosting Package-specific Questions

VPS-specific Questions

Virtual Dedicated Server specific Questions

Dedicated Server specific Questions

IPv6 specific Questions

Questions Regarding our US Region

Popular Questions Regarding DDoS Protection