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Unix Shell Accounts?
mcovey asks: "Unix shell accounts used to be easy to find, with quality applications installed and free web space. Nowadays the only free ones left are either not accepting new accounts, have limited applications or send you on a wild goose chase to register. Does anyone know any free or low-cost shell accounts that include compilers, IRC, background processes, FTP, a decent editor and an email app (preferably pine, since I have a config file already on my IMAP server)?"
... out on the linuxiso website: LinuxISO.org.
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
Just fire up Linux on some dusty old i386, and plug it into your home network. What's so special about having a hosted account?
RHCE; are you certified? Karma: ambiguous.
Get an inexpensive UML (User-Mode-Linux) virtual server and it's just like having a whole server online.
I use Tektonic. Their cheapest plan is only $15/month. For more money you get larger slices of the CPU and RAM. There are several other good ones as well.
(oh, and FP).
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
The reason there are few free ones is because people abused them. Just go buy a cheap shell somewhere like QuadSpeed Internet. $3 a month. JVDS offers a limited free shell, but as they put in the big print, no IRC.
I'm sure there are plenty of people that own dedicated hosts that would be happy to offer shell accounts, if only the company that they rent from would allow it. I own several dedicated hosts, and none of the companies allow me to sell shell accounts from them.
I'm sure it wasn't done on a whim. Giving out shell accounts allows the potential for serious abuse, and when you start granting strangers permission to do so many random things from the shell, abuse is destined to occur.
I've been using Panix for over 10 years. They have $10/month shell-only bring-your-own access accounts. CGI, IMAP, et. al. included. I highly recommend them. Highly competent personnel. Well administered. Worth every penny.
Ok, so I'm curious, what is the benefit to the provider to give free access to shell accounts.
All the shell accounts I've had in the past (I'm in the camp that just runs their own server over broadband now) were in some way attached to a paying account and/or were provided by a school or employer.
I can see a low-cost account, say $5/month for no compiler and $10/month for compiler (or just limit the account to x% CPU), but free doesn't make sense to me.
Not saying I think they should go away if they exist, just wondering what the incentive to give someone command-line access to your box would be?
It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
I'm a customer of hub.org.
They have web accounts with SSH login as a standard feature, and you can even get root access to your own personal VM and install whatever software you want.
Oh, and they run FreeBSD, which happens to be my favorite unix.
Does anyone know where I can find an open mail relay for legitimate purposes? For some reason, all the public open mail relays seem to be scarce now :(
Not that they offer it on the front page, but www.nexornet.com offers cheap shell accounts as an addition to their excellent hosting....
Most shell accounts are disappearing because they are very unsafe for the hoster. Also, the prevelence of UML (User Mode Linux) lets hosters run virtual servers in security sandboxes so that the child application is more isolated from the host system.
UML virtuals behave like complete Linux servers with smaller RAM and disk sizes. You can load full distros and get a direct, public, IP address. Some hosters let you run IRC servers and some don't (many upstream providers hard-filter IRCD). In terms of software and services, you can run just about anything you want. Mail, FTP, ssh, IRC, Apache, Perl, PHP, MySql, etc. Plus you have full editors (vi, emacs) and compilers (gcc, java, etc.).
You can typically get these starting at about $12/mo. We sell them starting at $15/mo. They are more than shell accounts because the load you can place on a physical server is much smaller. In general, we only put 15-20 on a box to keep the underlying LoadAvg < 1.
Info on UML is available at:
http://user-mode-linux.sourceforge.net/
Have fun.
On their website, they still appear to be offering their old services which include
30 days unlimited/interactive usage
10 MB Web Space for your personal webpage(s).
1 Internet Email Address
Full UNIX Shell Included
Listing in our Users directory
The Best Technical Support in The Business
Well that last line about their tech department is of a bit of sales hyperboly. But I do remember their being fairly good.
Of course you wont want to dial up to their network, but I've never had any trouble at all accessing the Unix Shell account they give you.
You get all that for a low low low $20 'merican dollars per month or for $200 a year in one lumpy sum.
Also interesting is that they appear to still have their Muds section open (as of a couple of months ago)and are STILL operating a BBS that you can chat with local yokal Jerseyans. Not that you'd want to do either of the latter, but it is still interesting to find that stuff still around!
Quod scripsi, scripsi.
Though I no longer use them, I was very happy with Eskimo.com. They give discounts if you're only using ssh/telnet to access the shell account, and they have great support. They use Linux and SunOS, though their news server, when I was last there, crashed a lot.
/vjl/
Check out their home page, but I do believe you get full IMAP access as well as compiler access. I remember compiling my own version of Pine as they were a version behind, and all worked just fine.
They're not free, but I think you'll find their rates ok.
My Daily photo website.
you could always put together your own server, buy your own domain, and then stick the box at the end of a friend's DSL line. Or rent colo space.
HP Test Drive
You sign up for a free account and get NetBSD, Linux, Tru64 and HP-UX accounts on a variety of hardware.
The account itself is not mail enabled, but compilers, ftp, editors - it's all there and anything else you need you could compile and run yourself...
HP-UX software ports and archives here.
Enjoy!
RJ
Notice the spike, right around the time that this article was posted. Hard data on the Slashdot effect!
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
SDF (a.k.a. freeshell.org) is good. Large userbase; running since -87. Several access levels are available.
As a serious user, you appreciate some degree of user validation - it means the server won't be full of spammers and script kiddies.
No sig to see here. Move along.
The biggest holdback you will find is IRC. You really cant get an IRC account unless you pay. Too many people ran eggdrop bots, or just pissed someone off and got the server nuked. IRC seems to be 'taboo' in free shell providers.
Hrrm... I usually just sign my name.
I'm sure if you dig around you can find some friends who have always-on nix boxes somewhere that you can use. I let my friends use mine. It's handy. You may not get great speeds if it's hosted at their house, but it is probably good enough depending on what you need.
:)
posting anonymously so people won't "try" to "become" my "friend"
I use CSoft for just this. From their website:
They're not free, but their cheapest setup is $5/month for a real shell login, web server access (including tons of interpreters, databases access, etc.), compiler access (they ask you to be reasonable), and just about full reign as a user on a shared UNIX system. They're also quick on service requests and have a great administration tool. From their website:
Look them up at csoft.net.
So why not just have your unix shell account on your desktop machine? If you are not already using Mac or Linux, it's easy to create a dual-boot with the Mandrake install CDs, or have a portable solution with a Knoppix CD and a USB stick.
This user account is inactive account replaced by the PDA
I was also trying to find a shell account a while back. Then I plugged an old computer into my broadband router, forwarded the SSH port to that box, and voila, a shell account! It may be easier than you think, and you can do whatever you want on it. Having root access and no "terms of service" are worth the extra effort of hosting it myself (which is minimal anyway). If you are worried about your ISPs hosting rules (ie no servers), don't worry about it. It's not like SSH consumes bandwidth, at least if only one person is using it. Good luck!
My first real introduction to the internet and email was thru a unix shell account. It was a company based in Ann Arbor, I think it's name was M-Net or something. Don't even know if it exists anymore.
Used pine, lynx, gopher, etc. all the time. Actually myself and two of my friends 'shared' the account in order to keep the costs down.
Are there any services left providing dialup shell accounts? Preferably national ISP's, but a local one would suffice.
what he said, plus they have ssh access, either via a client or through a web-based client, and webmail. nice size of space available, too. you can also get a price of $100 per year if you pay up front. i got my panix acct. after netcom discontinued shell access, and my only regret is not getting it sooner.
stored on computers from birth to the grave
Still exist. Try arbornet.org and grex.org/cyberspace.org.. Back "in the day", I ran one of the larger free shell systems out there.. you might have memories of me if you're old skool enough and look at my domain-name.
"Unix shell accounts used to be easy to find..."
My guess as to why they're harder to find now- Lack of demand. Broadband is far more available (or available period) compared to 5 years ago.
As of May of this year 48.61% of U.S. homes who regularly use the Internet have broadband.
Why pay another monthly fee when you can just throw up some hardware of your own on your home network that you can use without restriction. (Other than running say a web server on your cable modem, but if you want to SSH home and mucky muck around, no one is stopping you.)
For all the computer nerds without broadband, there are a few providers out there, but don't expect much competition when it comes to pricing/options.
No sig for you!!
You provide support for a corporate entity with multiple access connections and have to regularly check to see which are up/down, and find out why.
You are an out of work, homeless, software developer, and the library won't let you compile software on one of their computers.
You happen to be interested in writing new software to spam the internet, but don't want direct evidence of it being your system sending it out. (not a legitimate reason, but it wouldn't surprise me if someone wanted to do just this. It's probably the primary reason you might find it hard to find a hosted shell account as well.)
You have a mail server set up at home, doing secure imap, which is the only hole in your firewall, and would like to read your mail at an Internet cafe, or public library, without having to put a copy of that pine config on every computer you touch.
Just some ideas.
-Rusty
You never know...
..can be had for $5 at reliable hosts. For that, you not only get shell, you also get root.
Though as another poster mentioned, why not just set up a Linux box and get a shell account on your own workstation?
This sig no verb.
This, ultimately, is probably the major reason supported, open, free shell accounts have died out. Most people who'd want one have the ability to create what they need. As a result, the bulk of users of the free services have become those who are desperate to use someone else's machine, and you can imagine that a high proportion of those are script kiddies and other undesirables.
So I think the GP was on the money. Of course, you're out of luck if you don't have a DSL connection (or something else you can use to stay on the net permanently.)
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
This is only because of spammers and phishers. They have absolutely no shame and will immediately abuse any open access shell acount, and even those that are not free are still not immune.
We have had a hell of a time with people signing up for our service with stolen credit cards, and we ended up just blacklisting big parts of the world and subjecting every new order to a pretty meticulous investigative process prior to turn up.
You have a mail server set up at home, doing secure imap, which is the only hole in your firewall,
Why not punch another hole in your firewall for ssh? Then, when you're in an Internet cafe, its just a matter of grabbing a copy of putty from somewhere and connecting into your own server? Then you've also got all the tools you want right at your encrypted fingertips.
Dirk stood in the Stanley
www.metawire.org
Just saw them the other day, run on OpenBSD boxes.
Go to www.linode.com and get yourself a linode machine. Full root access and everything. All for about $20 a month. Good for hosting, backup, and shell stuff.
I've got a whole lab full of Solaris workstations for X and shell access to students. General usage is low, but there is a core of people who use them every day.
I've been thinking about opening up access beyond Case, but not too hard.
AceShells provides free shells with irc access (they're a commercial unix provider so, as always, there's a catch: free account activation is only activated during 3 - 4 PM EST) and passwords must be renewed every two months. cheap alternatives are QuadSpeedi (which i use) unixdemon and AcmeShells ( $1 per process)
www.mindsquad.com
No, but there are tons of free* Windows accounts for to use. I've heard the figure at millions.
*Cost does not include any lawyer fees or jail time associated with the use of said Windows accounts.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
Can you say keystroke logger?
I thought you could.
Rather they got my imap password then my login.
Anything is possible given time and money.
I know the OP originally asked for a FREE shell account, but there are plenty of low-priced shell accounts out there in the $3+/month range, depending on how many background processes, bandwidth, etc, you need.
A good place to start searching is ShellSearch.com. IIRC, they also have ratings for each shell provider.
I'm Trappped at Berkeley.
If you're a software developer, you can do a lot worse than sourceforge. The shell server doesn't seem to have a compiler, but you can opt-in for Compile Farm access, which should more than satisfy your compilation needs. Pine isn't there, but Mutt is, and i haven't checked IRC.
Can you say S/Key?
I thought you could.
You don't even need an internet connection to set up a shell account you can use from "anywhere". Just use a good old modem and your phone line, set up pppd the right way and there you are. You can access your shell from anywhere as long as there is a phone line, a computer and a modem. Moreover, your phone number don't change as often as your IP adress.
No GNU has been Hurd during the making of this comment.
With dedicated servers starting at $49/mth US (I haven't seen any cheaper yet), considering the benefits they have over shell accounts, it's not surprising that unix shell accounts are losing popularity.
Most dedicated servers these days have over 1TB of bandwidth to boot, even at the 49$ level.
Super Dimension Fortress [1] has offered free shell access for 17 years.
It is also 3l33t. But then you should know as much just by its name.
This is where it's at folks.
[1] http://sdf.lonestar.org/
However, the phone line and modem are the hard parts. I now only use one computer with a modem (not mine), and I have no phone line (cell phone all the way - I've got line-of-sight to a Sprint tower, too)
A AC posted more or less this, but my +2 bonus make this easier to find...
Do you have any friends? A local linux (or BSD) computer club? Start asking the geeks you know. I personally would be happy to give friends a shell account on my personal machine. I don't have much disk space or CPU power, but it is always on, and I have a static IP.
I'm not going to do this for someone who doesn't talk to me in person though. I want a personal promise that you won't abuse the account. That is you will keep your password safe, won't spam, won't try to crack root, or any of the other evil things that could be done. Oh, and I want to make sure I won't have to support you, I've got better things to do with my life than upgrade gcc just because 3.4 is out and 3.3 is soo outdated... (though if you ask nicely I might do it)
You are an out of work, homeless, software developer, and the library won't let you compile software on one of their computers.
Have one of your employed buddies plug a 386 box from the thrift store into their subnet for you to shell into. Sheesh. You can run Linux on laptops that sell under $10 at surplus auctions these days....
resigned
Can you say "One-time passwords?" Can be very easy, or very tricky, to set up, depending on your documentation and level of ability.
I'll assume you actually meant 1000 gigabytes per month "transfer limit"?, A bit of back of the envelope calculation suggests that to actual reach that limit would require a sustained bandwidth of 3 megabits.
Do any of the "$49 per month dedicated server" providers actually state any sort of guarantee on how much "bandwidth" (to the "Internet", not just local facility) a customer will have access to?
How many of these hosting companies have more than just a couple of DS3 shared across all of their customers?
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
A quick search turned up something that might be of interest: free shell accounts
I'm amazed that nobody's mentioned MetaWire yet. They're an all-around great shell/web provider with good policies and nice systems.
/. and signed up for an account. Sometimes its great to have a shell on a 3rd party system for those times that one of your boxes decides to stop working and you need to troubleshoot.
I found out about them from an older post on
I was thinking of setting up a bochs virtual server on my co-lo'd box and making this a free server. I used to have a nether.net account years ago and this got me through years of remote access from around the world. Some of us who remember how cool this was are keen to give back to the community.
However there's the obvious security threat. What I figure is that by assigning an ip to my virtual server (which is after all just a distro image), I can pretty much throw security out of the window on that virtual environment. If the server is screwed, I just copy over an old disk image. It's a closed world from which my real box would remain untouched. You filter connections -to- it and can make it too shit (resource wise) to do any harm with and bob is then pretty much your mythical uncle. What worries me is that I don't know why others don't do this? Constructive anarchy, I call it.
Speakeasy offers dialup, and it comes with a shell account.
I have their Sysadmin DSL package, which includes a shell account, dialup and static IPs.
(I've never had reason to use the shell account, as I have plenty of others that I've collected through the years, so I have no idea if they have compilers available, so this may not answer the original question)
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Simple solution: setup a firewall to block outgoing connections from the free accounts. The person using it to develop doesn't need any outside access at all, for email you open just that port. Think like chroot: protect your box from the users on it just as well as from the users off.
While I'm capable of setting up a box, and setting up software, configuring the network, and maintaining everything, it is timeconsuming, and can be frustrating and annoying.
It would be nice to be able to just log onto a box and have everything I ever want be setup already, and have someone else worry about security patches.
The obvious reason why the ISPs don't like to offer this anymore is because they don't want to deal with everybody trying to hack the machine, and hack each other, and spawn infinite recursive fork programs and programs that consume all the inodes.
I had a shell account with my ISP. 2 months before it went away somebody hacked the box. Then it took 2 weeks for access to come back. Then 6 weeks later it happened again. That was it. They cancelled the service.
"They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety"-B.Franklin
Off topic, but who really cares about such things?
...
Really like your sig, I hope you don't mind if I steal it? You'll see who I really am once I have done
Got line of sight to a hospital too? Aren't you concerned about radiation?
I can't believe no one has mentioned ripco communications. They offer shell accounts for $15 a month or $35 a quarter. $15 a month is pretty cheap. They offer ftp, lynx, irc, email (elm or pine), a homepage, lots of storage plus they don't care if you run slirp, a great PPP/SLIP emulator to get graphical internet off a shell account.
Girls are like Internet domain names, the ones I like are already taken
Boy have you got a lot to learn. Like internet domain names, they say they are taken, but you can have them for the right price.
We've been doing a Virtual Machines based on User-Mode Linux since the end of 2002, so you get root access to a whole system. See this similar discussion from a few months back (where we get a good mention naturally :-) ). I'm not sure how anyone can offer a shell service that's both free and reliable in these days of spammers and IRC networks attracting 100Mb denial-of-service attacks. But we own and run our own network and were one of the first two or three UML providers, so do take a look!
cheers,
Matthew @ Bytemark Hosting
I have a shell account with mythic-beasts.com. It's really good, only four quid a month too.
You might want to have a look at UK Shells http://www.ukshells.co.uk/ Obviously, they're based in the UK, so you Stateside people might have to contend with 10ms latency (shock, horror.) I've always found them to be efficient, helpful and exceedingly knowledgable.
----- condisco quorumque...
Not a problem - I stole it from bash.org, so feel free to have it.