It happens more than you'd think. You set up a VPS, deploy something useful, and then forget about it until you try to connect and find it gone. On most hosting providers — including NATBox — a VPS that passes its grace period gets permanently deleted. No recovery. Here's how to make sure that never happens to you.
Understand the lifecycle
On NATBox, here's what happens when a monthly VPS expires:
- Day 0 (expiry): VPS suspended — still there, just stopped
- Day -3: Warning email sent to your registered address
- Day +7 (grace period end): VPS and all data permanently deleted
The warning email is your first line of defence. Make sure it's going to an address you actually check.
Set calendar reminders manually
The lowest-tech solution that works: when you first set up your VPS, open your calendar and add two recurring events:
- A reminder 10 days before expiry: "Renew NATBox VPS — expires in 10 days"
- A reminder on expiry day itself as a backup
Set them to repeat monthly. It takes two minutes and you'll never forget.
Set up a cron job that emails you
If your VPS sends you an email a week before expiry, you have a backup reminder that lives on the server itself. Create a script with your expiry date hardcoded:
nano /opt/expiry-reminder.sh
#!/bin/bash
EXPIRY="2026-05-01"
TODAY=$(date +%Y-%m-%d)
DAYS_LEFT=$(( ($(date -d "$EXPIRY" +%s) - $(date -d "$TODAY" +%s)) / 86400 ))
if [ "$DAYS_LEFT" -le 10 ]; then
echo "VPS expires in $DAYS_LEFT days ($EXPIRY). Renew at natbox.io" | mail -s "VPS Expiry Warning" [email protected]
fi
chmod +x /opt/expiry-reminder.sh
# Run daily at 9am
echo "0 9 * * * root /opt/expiry-reminder.sh" >> /etc/crontab
Automate offsite backups
The real safety net isn't remembering to renew — it's having a copy of your data somewhere else. Even if you lose the VPS, you can rebuild quickly from a backup. A simple daily rsync to another server:
rsync -avz -e "ssh -p REMOTE_PORT" /opt/myapp/ root@BACKUP_SERVER:/backups/myapp/
Or use rclone to sync to Backblaze B2, S3, or Google Drive for free-tier cloud storage.
What to do if you miss the grace period
Honest answer: if 7 days have passed since expiry, the data is gone. There is no recovery. This is why offsite backups matter. Contact support anyway — in rare cases, if the storage hasn't been overwritten yet, something might be salvageable. But don't count on it.
Consider a yearly plan
NATBox offers yearly billing with 2 months free — 12 months of service for the price of 10. It's cheaper overall, and you only have to remember to renew once a year instead of once a month.