Locating Good Shell Accounts? 40
willis asks: "Several friends of mine will be graduating from college soon, and we're looking for a good place to get shell accounts with lots of space/bandwidth/reliability that we can do what we want with. We are currently considering two options: rolling our own by putting a box in a colocation facility, administering the box ourselves; or purchasing accounts from a commercial service. Our needs are: 20-30 users, 1-2GB/user, 0.5-1GB bandwith/user, FTP/HTTP/IMAP/SSH and expandable if neccessary. It seems like lots of people miss having good UNIX accounts after they leave school -- what is everybody else doing? Does anybody have any suggestions about good/cheap colos? Good account providers? Appropriate hardware?"
Re:non-trivial (Score:1)
For Northern California/Bay Area (San Jose to Santa Rosa, and possibly further North/South), check out sonic.net (http://www.sonic.net [sonic.net]. They allow shell access, although bots and daemons are generally verboten. Disk space is limited to 50MB or so (you can pay for more), although co-location services are available. Wired and wireless DSL are available, as well as ISDN. You are limited to 100MB/day bandwidth, although you can pay for more. They're quite competent technically -- check out the motd on their web page.
They're not the cheapest, though.
Still, I'm a happy and satisfied customer (and that's my only connection with them).
(Note that wired and wireless DSL aren't available in all areas. They depend on PacBell for getting the wired DSL line out to your home (but sonic, not PacBell, is the ISP), and the PacBell DSL lines are only available in certain areas. There also seems to be installation/scheduling "issues" (to say the least) with PacBell. The wireless DSL is only available in certain areas, and you need a direct, line-of-sight connection between the wireless DSL antenna on your home and the DSL tower.)
Re:Here is what I have done: (Score:1)
Hey, you forgot about io.com [io.com] in Houston and Austin. They also do strictly telnet[/ssh] accounts, and provide web space, anonymous FTP, and POP. They're a Linux shop with one host running FreeBSD.
Never used them, but I know people who did, and were generally happy about it.
world.std.com (Score:1)
Re:sdf.lonestar.org! (Score:1)
They offer napster access too, btw.
Re:BOFH (Score:1)
Their all over, but... (Score:1)
The problem you will have is the 1-2 GB/account. That's going to cost a fair amount.
Re:Shell accounts and packet sniffing (Score:1)
willis/
Re:Get a job (Score:1)
willis/
Primenet.com (Score:1)
Re:Shell accounts and packet sniffing (Score:1)
-b
Prophetnetworks (Score:1)
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Futurequest (Score:1)
Roll your own box... (Score:1)
It's about as cheap of a solution as you'll find.
I would *love* one of these (Score:1)
Home boxen + broadband (Score:1)
Re:Home boxen + broadband (Score:1)
Best Internet and GlobalCenter/Primenet (Score:1)
I also used Primenet's shell services which are BSD/OS based. Their network is very solid and they have a lot of custom written software for locating and managing your account, terminal server login time usage, etc. Primenet also has an awesome newsfeed as they are a West Coast hub for a lot of the Usenet traffic. They also have one or two local EFnet IRC servers.
Hope that helps!
-Pat
Alumni? (Score:1)
Don't they let you keep your account(s) after graduation??
Maybe you should make friends with a few of the admins around campus, and then get to keep your accounts anyways. :p
--
Shell accounts and packet sniffing (Score:1)
jeb.
BOFH (Score:1)
I understand where the BOFH ended up.
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Here is what I have done: (Score:1)
In those areas of Texas, I recommend Illuminati Online [io.com]. They have a well-deserved rep for fighting the 1st Ammendment fight, having stood up to the Feds [io.com] once before.
They aren't likely to merge/get bought out any time soon. And they DO give shell access, but I'm not so sure about the multi-GIG user space mentioned in the original request. That kind of shopping list sounds more like a co-loc than a conventional ISP to me.
corpex do it for me.... (Score:1)
shell accounts (Score:1)
faradic.net (Score:2)
Faradic.net has an amazingly sensible price list [faradic.net] that includes background daemons, IRC bots, and the like.
The one thing that is kind of limited is the disk space. The default ($9.95/month, $7.95 if paid annually) shell account only has 30 MB of quota, and additional space is ordinarily kind of dear ($0.25/MB/month), but I suspect that price just hadn't been adjustted lately and a few GB is negotiable.
They appear to be allergic to hand-holding, but do keep things working just fine.
Speaking of which, for a real change of attitude, see FlexNet [flex.com] in Hawaii. They offer zero tech support with attitude [flex.com]. You get a username, password, and phone number. Their NOC phone number is fairly easy to find, and they promise to hang up on you rudely if you call about anything except a problem at their end.
This is kind of an irrelevant plug, because they don't offer shell service (AFAIK), and I'm nowhere near Hawaii. I just think anyone who starts their main web page with "So that things are clear to you, please read this Letter From a Disgruntled Customer. [flex.com]" is cool.
workspot? (Score:2)
http://www.workspot.com
They give VNC-accessible linux desktops. They allow you to install software locally too. Cool.
Re:rackspace or something (Score:2)
Re:faradic and flexnet (Score:2)
As for your comments about them, I have to say that 30 MB is actually pretty good, and 0.25/meg is standard. (1 GB / user is insane imo, btw.) I went searching for a new ISP over the weekend and I have to say most of what I found was very poor. I saw rates as high as $1/meg for extra space, most accounts had only 10-15 MB, and almost never a shell account. Some didn't even have a true 24/7 plan, some had max connection times, etc. Yech.
I also have a FlexNet account. Cheapest vhost you can get that I know of. I don't even use the dialup access that comes with it, which is probably the bulk of their market. (Though I have had trying experiences with their technician/owner, which worked themselves out)
I used to work for an ISP that offered shell accounts. I won't mention who, because a) they don't want to sell shell accounts (or dialup for that matter) anymore, and b) they laid me off on Friday. But I can tell you that they had very good rates, and Faradic's beats theirs.
Only problem is that I had to wait three days for the account to be phone-verified and activated. Sigh, so much for realtime, but at least its here. (I suspect that it is a one-person operation or not much larger. I know FlexNet is. [Fine with me.]) But *all* Faradic accounts have shells -- its default.
FWIW, a friend used to run a basement ISP that offered cheap shell accounts (he still might, mail me for info), and advertised that he would offer component colocation; i.e. you could send him a disk drive and that would be your quota. So, you could go get yourself a ##GB disk and send it to him to mount. Unfortunately I don't know if he ever actually got that service in place.
Oh, and when I saw Faradic's special IRC charges, I was amused. Its a great idea. Unfortunately I doubt it helps Faradic's standing with EFnet ircops.
-- Keith "She sells C shells at the Shore.Net" Tyler
sdf.lonestar.org! (Score:2)
Re:Prophetnetworks (Score:2)
Re:reviews ? (Score:2)
rackspace or something (Score:2)
All your events [openschedule.org] are belong to us.
toolshed51.com (Score:2)
Server4Me (Score:2)
Server4Me.com [server4me.com] has a $49/month leased server deal. For that, you get a P3-500, 64M, 8.4 gig (IDE), and FreeBSD 4.1. The bandwidth is done two ways. For $49/month you can get up to 3 gig transfer a month or a dedicated 56k. If it were 2 or 3 guys looking for a shell account and a box to screw around with, that's the best deal I've come across. If you want a serious server, this isn't the deal for you.
I think in your particular situation, I would pass the hat, build a server, and co-locate it at a local ISP. (Hurricane Electric [he.net] has an acceptable reputation and OpenBSD Journal just moved to a co-lo there.)
Re:Get a job (Score:2)
non-trivial (Score:2)
But there are benefits to having someone else deal with the headaches, especially on days with new viruses.
Most of the decent shell ISPs are gone now, sold out to huge conglomerates. Mine has been sold 4 times in the last 1.5 years, lately to a Japanese company (it started out in California). I'll be first to admit that my shell account now is -way- better than the account I had in college. But I'm still shopping around for a new provider.
Colocation (Score:2)
Here is what I have done: (Score:3)
Another was to get around the "no shell" rule is also to get a "business" account -- they are usually a lot better with those in being cooperative. And they fix the hardware when it breaks!
As to the "make friends with the sysadmins" idea, well, that works until everyone graduates and they review the hidden "never delete" sudo list. Suddenly, you get a nastygram and the account goes away. Bummer. Best to do the pruning yourself and keep up with your own stuff. Yes, that means storing tapes off-site from your house and doing your own backups, but you ARE an adult now, right?
Freeshell.org (Score:3)
Freeshell's got good stuff going on, and is -- FREE. As in beer.
If you want to use FTP, etc, it's $36 for a lifetime membership.
I love it.
reviews ? (Score:3)