Sonic.net

I had many web pages in my shell.sonic.net account.

Last month wanted to take a look at my web pages. Got a cannot connect error message.
Learned that the shell server was shut down in July 2024. It would have been useful if Sonic sent an advance
message about turning off the shell server.

Is it possible to retrieve files from my shell.sonic.net account? Does tech support have an archive site?

Daniel

Yes, you can access all of your data via ftp using ftp.sonic.net

dtomasevich wrote: ↑Thu Dec 12, 2024 4:10 pm I had many web pages in my shell.sonic.net account.

Last month wanted to take a look at my web pages. Got a cannot connect error message.
Learned that the shell server was shut down in July 2024. It would have been useful if Sonic sent an advance
message about turning off the shell server.

Is it possible to retrieve files from my shell.sonic.net account? Does tech support have an archive site?

Daniel

Hey Daniel, from Daniel: this surprised me as well. Not only did they remove shell access, but Database as well (a Sonic tech support person tried to tell me that I did not have a DB, since it did not show up in the member login... of course I had a DB! WordPress was running on it)

To expand on the ftp answer, look in these places:

CGI /usr/local/lib/httpd/cgi-bin/[your login]
FTP /ftp/pub/users/[your login]
WEB /home/WWW_pages/[your login]

If you are running WordPress, or otherwise using a database, dont forget about that (WP can do an XML export.. but eh... usable, but you really want the MySQL dump). I wanted to use a WP plugin to capture the DB, but could not even upgrade the version of WP it depended on - no apparent way to use more recent version of php.

Let me stress that: if you are running WordPress, your posts are in the database, not in the filesystem. Just backing up your files is only part of the story.

This was poorly handled by Sonic, and after ~20 years here, It informs my decision to wind down my account and leave.