

Ask HN: unix home in the cloud? - strayer

Finishing a contract for an academic project soon, I'll miss having a unix machine I can log in from anywhere, which has all my scripts and data in it, where I can run stuff for myself.<p>Amazon EC2, slicehost, are marketed as hosting sites. I guess many of you use them as home machines too. Any thoughts?
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ddrager
All of those are clouds, not really meant as an always-on home in the cloud
(or at least an expensive option). I'll assume you are looking for low-budget
since you mentioned "Academic project."

What you are looking for is probably a VPS (can be had for < $10/month at
many, many places) or simply setting up an old computer on your home
connection. Even if you have a static IP, use DynDNS or similar service to get
a static address to connect to.

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strayer
Yes, something like the idea of a Virtual Private Server is what I was looking
for, thanks.

I wonder what's people's experience for single-user, private daily use.

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retroafroman
I have a Linux VPS I use everyday, mostly just privately. It's very handy as a
way to get around the corporate network blocked sites, and I can use it if I
feel the Wifi network I'm on is sketchy to try and encrypt my traffic. Mine is
only 3 bucks a month and that's easily worth it to me. Lowendbox.com has good
deals pop up all the time. It's no speed demon, but it works for all I do with
it.

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bobf
Lowendbox.com is a great way to get cheap VPS service, and anything <$10/mo is
hard to complain too harshly about.. but my caveat to using companies from
there is to make sure you have decent backups, handle email/DNS somewhere
other than your VPS, and try not to care too much about 100% uptime :)

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rubinelli
I just use Google Apps for Domains for email. For domains, GoDaddy is decent,
but I prefer Namecheap.

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inetsee
If you can get by with something really lightweight, Amazon has their new EC2
micro instance. It's free for the first year (for new AWS customers), then an
on-demand instance runs 2 cents an hour. You can't beat those prices with a
stick.

More details about what's included can be found here:
"<http://aws.amazon.com/free/>

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strayer
I am considering that, but shutting down during off hours so as not to run
into a bill of >$200 a year (I'm not a new customer).

I am curious about people's experiences with using them for that purpose.

I found using EC2's non-micro instances somehow inconvenient because boot
times seemed to be too long for casual use, plus I had to pay extra for a
permanent IP. Maybe I'm too lazy, or perhaps the micro instances are more
suitable for that purpose?

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JoachimSchipper
Google "shell account"? Or buy a cheap, simple computer (think SheevaPlug) and
keep it on at home? Carry a netbook? The possibilities are endless...

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hasenj
Did you consider "Ubuntu One" synchronization of all your scripts and
dotfiles?

