Bright idea--need guidance creating a shell server

[th3>kLuTz]

I was doing some research into shell accts today. I am needing to have one for a site that i discovered that teaches *nix basics. I was looking around for free shells and discovered that they are very difficult to obtain and that the majority really limit what you can do. So, as I was looking at a description of some of the computers, i realized that many were old cast-off systmes, of which i have plenty So, the brilliant idea entered my head to create my own shell server on my old system. However, even though I have redhat 7.1 on it. I do have apache installed on it. I don't know how to do this or even what to do. My system is a cyrix 150 with 64 megs of ram and 3 gigs of hd space...(I know, its not much, but it would work for a few shell accts) If anyone could help me, I would be greatly appreciative and indebted. Who knows, I may even share some accts if I get it up and running) I figured that this would be a good learning oportunity. Thanks in advance.

[smirc]

Shell accounts are over rated. Why not just install Linux or FreeBSD yourself. Then you can have as many shells and accounts as you want.

[digitalgadfly]

smirc is correct, if you need a shell for the class and you cannot find one then just put *nix on one of your older boxes. And we all know that linux is good for what would otherwise be outdated hardware. And just think, it will have more features than any shell account you will ever find. Plus it will add to the learning expierence.

[th3>kLuTz]

Thanks, I have redhat 7.1, i guess that will have to do.....are there any tuts on creating a shell server? I can't seem to find any. I guess when i do mine, ill have to write a tut on it Thanks anyways

[sargx]

shell server? just enable the telnet daemon, you should be set. And if you're taking a class teaching nix basics.. why do you need a shell account, if you have linux, just go to the console screen.

[th3>kLuTz]

thanks...I apreciate all the advice....and, sargx, good job on waking up before 2pm

[roswell1329]

th3>kLuTz -- Are you interested in setting up your system as a public free-account terminal like nyx.net? I admire this as a project, and if you're still interested it sounds like all you would need is a very healthy internet connection and a good CGI script running on your web server to take account information and automatically set up the accounts for telnet use. Should be fairly simple. I would recommend adopting a pretty strict user policy, however. If you're willing to grant anyone a shell account on your system, be prepared for them to use it like their own personal war game. Let me know if you need help with the script.

[th3>kLuTz]

Roswell1329, Yes, i would like to set up my comp as a server like you are saying.....I would need help with the script, and i am going to be getting a good bb acct soon. I also need guidance setting up the server through apache. Any help would be appreciated.

[roswell1329]

Setting up the server should be fairly straight forward. You don't need anything fancy, and the default Apache install should be just fine. Check out The Linux Documentation Project for the How-To on Apache. Make sure that you have a cgi-bin directory designated in the httpd.conf file when you're through with the installation, and make note of what it is. Also find out what CGI extensions are allowed by your server in your httpd.conf file. Some installs allow extensions like .pl, .py, and .cgi. You really only need .cgi. Having the others around is a bit of a security hole, because you're now telling people what services you have available to the web server.

Understand that this project doesn't really sound like it would warrant a secure server (a web server that encrypts all transactions), so you need to tell people on your sign-up form that the information is not being encrypted. Because of this, you might not want to ask for much personal information. A name, email address, and username would probably suffice. Do me a favor, too, and make sure some version of perl is running on your system, preferrably 5.0. I really would hate to write this script in bash or ksh.

I'm not sure what you meant by a "bb acct". When I see "bb" I always think of the sweetBig Brother monitoring system offered by Sean MacGuire and Robert-Andre Croteau.

One more thing. To keep this thread off the main topics list and basically annoying everyone, why don't you PM me any other questions you have.

[sargx]

well, everyone posted good advice, but here's mine: take it for what it's worth.

If you want to setup a shell server, this is the method I would go.

1) Install OpenBSD
2) enable telnetd
3) take accounts by e-mail.

Here's my reasoning, OpenBSD comes pretty secure, so you don't have to worry about being exploited as much (there are always ways, but OpenBSD is, in my opinion, more secure than linux). Accounts by e-mail will take longer but it's easier.


sgx

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