Shell Server Turn Down

[lr]

I'm not sure yet how to transmit only updated files with ftp when copying a whole directory tree, and whether ftp can even do that. Nor do I know how to automatically compare directory trees between the Sonic (web serving) copy and my original copy.

If you are running Linux, lftp has a mirror command that can be used for this.

Will look! Sadly, my home servers all run some *BSD flavors, but maybe lftp is available there. If not, I have Linux machines around that I can go through. Thank you for the tip.

[mball]

I take umbrage with your paragraph.

I don't got none of those collage words, but I took...something...with the "speed" comment. Stray away from sonic's service catalog and bps are scarce and hideously expensive. And the plug was abruptly pulled on mine a few days ago so I'm dialed in with literally the same speed internet I had 25 years ago. I wonder how long it'll be before even that goes away, with only a dozen hard-core users using it.

It was nice having access to a system with a fat pipe. I'll admit it went underutilized. Fear of blundering into storage fees played a big part.

I always used the shell for email. Never ran a mua on mycomputer. Not going well.

[tbessie]

Dane: in the translated tongue of those who lived near the
three-mile-high collapsed letters above the Sirius Cybernetics Complaints Division:

Share and Enjoy

And to those people who used the shell server: I hope
you Don't panic but instead find a new service that meets your needs.
And last, I hope you will always know where your towel is.

-- Landon Noll

So... are you telling Dane "Go Stick Your Head In A Pig"?

- Tim

[fw]

I think there's a fundamental misconception here in assuming that the sole value of the shell server is the ability to run Linux programs and tools. It's true that the need for a shell server for that particular use case has greatly diminished over the years, but the undiminished use case is the ability to apply Linux tools to internal locations such as Web and FTP areas. Granted, that value already dropped significantly when direct mailspool access was removed in the last shell migration, but this still a further loss.

The loss of direct mailspool access not only removed the ability to run shell-based email clients without going through IMAP (not to mention a private IMAP server that works better than Dovecot), but also removed the ability to clean up the message-ordering screwups caused by Dovecot's periodic spazzes. Some of you may remember that I was the one who fixed Pine when it was erroneously assumed that it was already able to handle the move from mbox- to maildir-format mailboxes, so I have some familiarity with mailbox formats.

All of the above could be addressed by providing externally accessible sshfs access to the relevant servers, similar to the internal access that's already being used by the shell server. It's already possible to configure sshd to allow sshfs access without allowing shell access (which may already be the case anyway). If such access were limited to key-based authentication, the increase in security vulnerability (per user in any case) would be minimal. There would, of course, need to be a mechanism for uploading keys.

Fred Wright

[tbessie]

... [removed] ...

So Sonic is using Dovecot? Really? I thought they were using something more traditionally associated with Linux deployments (dunno what that is, I've never chosen an IMAP server, though I DID build and install Dovecot on a machine of mine once, to see how well it worked).

I remember having to take my Pine config and change it to IMAP when they changed mailbox formats. That was a big pain (but I'm glad I did it). I think I even built and installed Alpine in my home directory since the version of Pine that was available on the shell server wasn't the newest, if I recall correctly.

- Tim

[aaazen]

This afternoon, June 28, I learned that the shell server is going down on Sunday June 30.
More notice would have been nice...

Every day to I use the shell to fetch and send mail with my sonic.net account to a linux machine at home and have been doing this for more than 9 years.

I use the shell to investigate DNS issues and other internet issues.

[fw]

... [removed] ...

So Sonic is using Dovecot? Really? I thought they were using something more traditionally associated with Linux deployments (dunno what that is, I've never chosen an IMAP server, though I DID build and install Dovecot on a machine of mine once, to see how well it worked).

They are now. It was Courier earlier, though at one time there was no IMAP support at all, which is when I originally started running my own IMAPd on the shell server, via a local wrapper that ran it as a shell command and pretended to be a local IMAPd.

The original IMAP implementation was the UW imapd, part of the Pine package (and sharing the mailbox access code).

[tbessie]

... [removed] ...

So Sonic is using Dovecot? Really? I thought they were using something more traditionally associated with Linux deployments (dunno what that is, I've never chosen an IMAP server, though I DID build and install Dovecot on a machine of mine once, to see how well it worked).

They are now. It was Courier earlier, though at one time there was no IMAP support at all, which is when I originally started running my own IMAPd on the shell server, via a local wrapper that ran it as a shell command and pretended to be a local IMAPd.

The original IMAP implementation was the UW imapd, part of the Pine package (and sharing the mailbox access code).

Interesting history. When I downloaded Dovecot, I think it asked for my email address. They must have gotten hacked long ago, because I've been getting tons of spam on that address ever since. :-/

[scott]

This afternoon, June 28, I learned that the shell server is going down on Sunday June 30.
More notice would have been nice...

Every day to I use the shell to fetch and send mail with my sonic.net account to a linux machine at home and have been doing this for more than 9 years.

I use the shell to investigate DNS issues and other internet issues.

Hi aaazen,

The notice went out May 1. Sorry if that wasn't enough notice. The OS distribution the server was running on was EOL, and there were only a few dozen users still onboard. It's easy to spin up your own Linux/Unix server on Digital Ocean or Amazon -- or, if you want a managed shell host, both I and others highly recommend panix.com. There's also other shell servers out on the "tildeverse".

Today, July 1, a vulnerability was found in openssh sshd linked with glibc, which affects millions of Linux servers. Since the shell host would have been EOL, we wouldn't have gotten any needed security updates, either for sshd or anything else.

https://www.computing.co.uk/news/432990 ... ux-systems

[mikefr]

When I learned that the shell server would be going away, I assumed I could still use WinSCP (via SFTP) on my PC to maintain my Sonic hosted web site. But I guess I was wrong.

So, is there any way for me to maintain my Sonic based web site now? If not, is there any point to my continuing to pay for web hosting?