[olug] Shell accounts? [OT?]

[Ben Hollingsworth]

On 09/13/2017 10:26 PM, Herb Wolfe wrote:
> Does anyone know of any providers of shell accounts? I'd prefer local or
> free. I've been using Internet Nebraska for some 20-odd years, and they are
> going to drop shell access soon. Web hosting is a bonus, as they've also
> changed their setup for that as well.

Yeah, that made me sad.  My shell account at falcon.inetnebr.com is my 
longest-standing Unix shell account, at 23 years.  I created the second 
login account on that machine in June 1994.  I'm sad to see it go.  I 
can understand why IN is making that change, though.  We live in a 
different world now than we did back thenk.

I can live with losing direct vi access to my main web site's HTML 
files, because I've been slowly converting that web site over to 
Wordpress for a while now (it's big), and I run a web server on my home 
machine for those one-off instances when I need to temporarily serve 
something without Wordpress.

The biggest bummer, nostalgia aside, is SSH access.  In order to keep 
the log file noise to a minimum, my home firewall restricts which IP 
blocks are allowed to SSH into my home computer.  On the rare occasion 
when I need to SSH in from an unapproved network, I was always able to 
SSH into falcon first, then jump from there to my home machine.  That 
route is no longer an option, so I'll probably have to open up the 
firewall again.  Or maybe I can just paint with a bigger brush & block 
foreign IP's using that list that somebody posted recently.

It was also handy to use my shell account on falcon to get a second 
opinion when I was seeing odd network behavior from home.  That'll be 
annoying to lose, too.

I'll have to check out freeshell.org and sdf.org.

-- 
*Ben "Obi-Wan" Hollingsworth* obiwan at jedi.com <mailto:obiwan at jedi.com> 
www.Jedi.com <http://www.jedi.com>
The stuff of earth competes for the allegiance I owe only to the
Giver of all good things, so if I stand, let me stand on the
promise that You will pull me through. /-- Rich Mullins/