How to protect the service code from the host?

Question

Software and Internet Services

What rules and tools to protect the service code from the hoster exist (for example, php / web-stack) and in general?
Well, that is, how can you protect the product code from copy-paste, given that the hoster has full access to the files?
Are there any practices? Agreements, VPS, IonCube or something else. Or is there no way to protect yourself from a hoster in principle?
Thanks to.

Answer 1

Dedicated server plus full encryption of everything. You can even supply your own equipment. There are even separate racks and halls with separate locks and channels. In general, I recommend reading about the design of modern data centers and how it is all arranged inside. By the way, all this does not interfere with government tracking systems at all (PRISM, Snowden, etc.).

Answer 2

Colocation and barn locks on servers.
Although the method of "elusive Joe" is most often used.

Answer 3

I think that

protect the product code from copy-paste

full access to files

mutually exclusive paragraphs.
If you are already so paranoid - spread the service to different hosters so that the theft of one piece does not give anything. (a kind of variation of the microservice architecture, with the launch of services on hosted machines).
ps
In general, some experimental developments on hardware protection of a virtual machine from a hypervisor were mentioned somewhere in the wind. But I doubt something in principle.
pps
As for agreements, etc. - Describing by you a potentially undesirable situation is the theft of intellectual property (which is a crime in any civilized country), another thing is that you cannot prove it 100%.