
Public access Linux system: Your non-profit shell provider since 2002 - doener
https://freeshell.de/
======
sloum
There are a lot of good shell systems out there. I first used SDF. Then
circumlunar.space (which is still a mainstay for me). I also now run a micro-
pubnix off of a raspberry pi zero (featuring a custom built shell and software
suite for gopher phlogging, chat, bbs, and gaming) at
gopher://colorfield.space:70/

I do not know much about freeshell.de, but can say that I have found the type
of internet community that I have missed since the early 90s ont hese shells.

The tilde crew is really awesome as well.

~~~
jeremy7600
I used to be on SDF and at the time (99-02) recommended it to everyone who
needed a place to put a webserver for a small website.

------
dogcow
I've been a user of SDF for many years, and even though it may be irrelevant
form a technical standpoint, even with all its faults I am thankful for its
continued existence.

At least in the case of SDF, it can be a "social" community just as much as a
platform for various hosted services.

It features a custom BBS of sorts called 'bboard' \- which lets users post
messages about any and all conceivable topics - from Unix to ham radio to
philosophy and old telephones.

It also has its own chatroom called 'com' in addition to various channels on
its own irc.sdf.org server.

There is an active ham radio "club" within SDF, and there are regular
"partyline" voice chats (conference calls) offered through its VoIP service.

It also hosts a huge gopher/phlog community - where users not only post
interesting and unique content, but often make a point of writing posts in
response to other users' posts.

As someone who first got online in the mid-1990s via AOL on a Macintosh, I
largely missed out on the early days of the Internet, before it came to be
dominated by the WWW. I truly appreciate SDF because it is a nice space for
folks to get a small taste of what life used to be like on the net, before it
became dominated by commercial interests, relentless invasion of privacy, and
proprietary services.

I'd encourage all to create an account and take a look around. The one-time
$36 donation to get lifetime ARPA membership status is well worth it, in my
opinion.

------
ahriman
There's a network of shell providers called the Tildeverse:
[https://tildeverse.org/members](https://tildeverse.org/members)

------
weinzierl
This is a bit off-topic but I'm wondering about this since I had a shell
acount at university many years ago.

Is it safe to ssh into an untrusted host? What are the things to watch out? I
know that ssh -X is not a good idea but are there other options that are
potentially dangerous?

Or is it just that people trust their shell providers?

~~~
nothrabannosir
One attack vector is your terminal emulator’s interpretation of escape
sequences. Some of them allow code execution.

E.g.: [https://www.proteansec.com/linux/blast-past-executing-
code-t...](https://www.proteansec.com/linux/blast-past-executing-code-
terminal-emulators-via-escape-sequences/)

 _> Its important to emphasize that escape sequences used in up-to-date
terminal emulators used today most likely don't have such vulnerabilities,
since they have been mitigated in the past. However, terminal emulators
developed recently and used on other devices, like on embedded devices,
Android, iOS can still contain such vulnerabilities._

------
noufalibrahim
My first experience with a free UNIX shell on a public machine was
[http://grex.cyberspace.org/](http://grex.cyberspace.org/) and it seems that
they're still up.

~~~
kevstev
Wow! I also used to use that system, for many years my primary email was
kevstev@cyberspace.org. I never used the actual shell for much, but I did use
it for email until gmail came along.

Interesting, that is a blast from the past I had nearly forgotten about.

------
rahimnathwani
Also [http://nyx.net/](http://nyx.net/) which, at least when I joined, was
free to sign up. An existing member could verify your ID face to face, and you
just had to provide a photocopy, envelope and stamp(s) so they could send a
copy to nyx.

~~~
tyingq
Fond memories of nyx. I made the "quick reference" card, and it looks like
it's still around:
[https://www.nyx.net/help.html#QUICK%20REFERENCE](https://www.nyx.net/help.html#QUICK%20REFERENCE)

------
brian_herman__
Also [https://sdf.org/](https://sdf.org/)

~~~
lambda
I tried out SDF when I wanted to give someone some basic intros to how to use
the shell and do shell scripting, and was looking around for something that
provided some kind of free shell access.

The problem is, unless you donate or find someone to sponsor you, you don't
actually get shell access; you get some very limited BBS functionality. And
even once you do donate to get the basic access level, there are a number of
basic programs (like Python and a C compiler) that aren't executable without
getting a higher access level.

I wound up installing my own local version of pkgsrc in my home directory just
to see if I could use that work around the issue, but that's not really a good
option for the "teach someone how to use a Unix shell" use case.

It's easier to just spin up a free tier VM on one of the cloud providers than
it is to use the "Public Access Unix" on SDF.

~~~
cat199
One other benefit of experiencing this system instead of a random cloud VM is
that one can experience what a properly managed 'classic' unix system is like
- e.g:

\- multinode / shared nfs homedirs / multiuser

\- CLI mail is wired up properly

\- publish www via ~/public_html

\- finger/whois

\- system from source, 3rd party stuff in ports

the modern 'random ubuntu laptops + dhcp on wifi' network feels hugely
impoverished by comparison as far as network cohesion (but yes there are
positives to this tradeoff too)

~~~
devereaux
cli mail, finger and talk could be a great initiation to traditional tools!

As for the random ubuntu laptops, try to do the dhcp on wifi using a
debootstrap of a minimal debian on a separate partition, then configure
wpa_supplicant to start dhcp by systemd dependancy, and detect wifi card to
start wpa_supplicant@wifi_card_device_name. This could give you a great
introduction to modern tools! (bonus points if you setup a native wayland)

Understand the old and the new ways gives a better picture of the overall
system, and will help you make education decisions.

(And it's not forbidden to setup CLI mail on your modern system, or a systemd-
based classic unix! mix and match to your tastes!)

------
Lerc
I have always wondered how they manage security on these systems.

My long term hobby project is a web desktop for Linux. Security wise it is
much the same as letting people use a shell from https. It would be nice to
have a system to allow people to try it out and have a couple of hundred meg
or so of persistent storage.

It's quite a daunting prospect, and such fun if you get it wrong.

~~~
blfr
Back in the day you would use grsecurity. It was very impressive. It pre-
empted virtually every bug you'd hear about.

It has gone private/premium since. Nowadays perhaps you can achieve the same
with SELinux or AppArmor?

------
scarface74
I can go back further. My first experience with a free non profit shell
provider was nyx.net in 1992.

[https://www.nyx.net/](https://www.nyx.net/)

I could dialup to Peachnet - a free Gopher server provided by the University
System of GA and somehow navigate to it. It was a six step process to get
there and I had a macro to automate it.

It was a 7 bit connection and I could only use Kermit to transfer files. I
still haven’t found an interface as clean as the “nn” news reader I use to use
to read Usenet.

------
ape4
Amazing they aren't abused out of existence.

~~~
sp00ls
Having to send in a physical postcard before account activation probably helps
with that.

------
hkt
This sort of thing got me into unix based operating systems. Such a fantastic
service.

------
heyjudy
As shells go, I used to pay for FreeBSD hosting on pair.com. The problem with
free (I like free stuff, just not free shells) is, if it ever becomes popular,
some people will abuse it and a Tragedy of the Commons is a likely result...
it's better to pay for what you use so that:

a) survival of the service is more likely assured

b) there's someone to file a ticket with and an SLA/SLO when things break

c) doesn't enable jerks to ruin something for everyone, i.e., draconian limits
or taking a service offline

------
Havoc
I was surprised recently how cheap low end *nix VPS are.

Like 2 bucks for a year. Sure it's a crappy 128mb system but that's enough to
do a lot of things.

~~~
jpablo
2usd/year with a public IP? Link?

~~~
Havoc
At that price range it'll be IPv6s and NAT'd ipv4. The v4s are specific port
ranges (and to SSH). I bought a 5 pack multi country one recently to
experiment with distributed stuff. :)

A more respectable machine is probably like 15 usd a year (1gig w/ ipv4).

Keeping in mind that you get what you pay for

Relevant linkages...

2USD ones...
[https://lowendspirit.com/locations.html](https://lowendspirit.com/locations.html)

ipv4s...
[https://alphavps.bg/clients/cart.php?gid=33](https://alphavps.bg/clients/cart.php?gid=33)

More...
[https://www.lowendtalk.com/discussions](https://www.lowendtalk.com/discussions)

~~~
mr_toad
That first link redirects to spam on mobile. I sure wouldn’t trust them with
my credit card.

~~~
Havoc
oh wow. Yeah that is indeed rather dodgy. Sorry about that.

Yeah I'm not giving anyone in this price class a credit card. Paypal &
disposable credit cards only.

It's also quite possible that they close shop fly-by-night style so I wouldn't
rely on them for anything serious. Still for the price I find them useful for
experimenting & learning.

------
blfr
Since people are recommending other projects of this kind, allow me to throw
in [https://hashbang.sh/](https://hashbang.sh/) which is IMHO the slickest
one.

freeshell.de, however, has this great oldschool feel without being too
crowded. Very hipster, highly recommended.

------
jeffrom
reminiscing about hobbiton.org now :P

------
matte_black
Any examples of what people might use these systems for? Is it mostly
socializing?

~~~
EamonnMR
Playing around on a Unix box that someone else can administer? An alternative
social network? Or even just retrocomputing.

