Eskimo North

I created this forum because a non-trivial percentage of the questions I receive from customers relate to how to do things from the Unix/Linux shell. The majority of customers aren't even aware that it exists or what it they can do with it.

I will use the terms Unix/Linux interchangably here because although Linux was created seperately from Unix, it is functionally identical. Since modern BSD Unix systems use the same software tools as Linux, Linux and BSD Unix are even more similar.

The Unix shell is a command line interface to the operating system akin to the "Command Prompt" on Windows-XP. However, since Unix (and Linux) was originally designed with a command line interface as the primary user interface, the capability and overall usefulness of the Unix shell is much greater.

With Windows-XP, the command prompt, or command line interface, is built-in to the operating system. This means you have your choice of exactly one CLI.

With Unix, the command line interpreter, called a "shell" is a seperate stand alone executable program like any other program that can execute on the system. Because it is seperate and not built-in, different shells are available providing different user interfaces to suit the needs and tastes of the individual.

From the shell many text-based tools are available. You can read e-mail or usenet news, chat with people in IRC, schedual events for future automatic execution, edit files, write, compile, and test programs, and many other things are possible.

More to come ...

The shell server here at Eskimo North is 'eskimo.com'. Before you can login to it, you need a shell account here. This is included with dialup and DSL accounts so if you have dialup or DSL with us, you also have a shell.

To obtain a free trial account, go to http://www.eskimo.com/newuser.html and apply for a trial account.

If you would like more information on shell account pricing, please see http://www.eskimo.com/services/shells.html.

There are four different methods by which you can access our shell server.

You can use 'telnet' to telnet to eskimo.com. If you are using a Windows machine you can do this by going into Programs->Accessories->Command prompt, and then at the '>' prompt type 'telnet eskimo.com'. Alternately, from most Windows web browsers you can type in the URL field, "telnet://eskimo.com" and it will pop-up a terminal window. In both cases, the login and password that you use is the same as your e-mail login and password.

From another Unix system or other systems that support rlogin, you can rlogin to eskimo.com. This protocol is more transparent than telnet and preferable if you plan to transmit files over the terminal session. There are better ways to transfer files however.

The above two methods are not encrypted, they pass your login and password and everything else that you do during the session over the Internet in plain text and as a result the potential for your session to be 'sniffed' exists. This is particularly true for large campus networks and wireless networks.

A much better way to connect is with 'ssh'. Unlike telnet and rlogin, ssh passes all data encrypted. Your login and password, and everything you type is not visible to potential sniffers. Most modern Unix systems are equipped with ssh but older systems often are not. On those systems which are not equipped you can either obtain the software yourself and compile it or ask your system administrator to install it.

Windows does not include an ssh client as part of the operating system programs. You will need to obtain a third party ssh client such as PuTTY. PuTTY supports both telnet and ssh, you should use ssh.

A forth method which is really a variation on the third method is to use Web ssh shell terminal from any Java enabled browser. Go to our home page at http://www.eskimo.com/ and in the upper left under Web Applications, you will see it listed. Web ssh is a good way to read your e-mail or perform other functions at public kiosks and other poorly secured locations because the encryption and decryption takes place inside the web browser thus bypassing most, but not all, sniffing oportunities.

Once you are logged in, if it is your first time or you have not changed your shell, you will be in "Esh" and have a command prompt that looks something like, "Main> " . At this prompt you can use '!' to drop into a bourne shell.

To bypass Esh in the future, you can use 'chsh' once you are in the bourne shell to change your shell to the shell of your preference. We support: bash, csh, ksh, sh, tcsh, and zsh.

I have been attempting to use the "Web SSH Shell Terminal", but have had no luck at all. What I get is a terminal with words scrolling past faster than can be read- as if the "Enter" key was locked down.

Have tried it from IE, Mozilla, and Firefox, from several different computers (All XP Pro).

I have JAVA installed; does anyone have any other suggestiongs?

I occasionally use it from a Windows-XP box with Firefox 2.0.0.6 and do not experience that problem.

However, a better way to access the shell from a Windows box is with the use of the ssh client putty.

http://www.putty.nl/

With putty you can have multiple windows up at once if you like and if you resize it, it will automatically resize the window size in the tty parameters on the shell server so that applications like vi will use whatever screen size you currently have.