How to use UNIX Shell Services

Getting started

Our login server, shell.gradwell.net does not support telnet as it is an insecure method of connecting to machines on the Internet.

Instead, you must use SSH to connect to the server. SSH is like telnet, but the connection is secure.

We are running a fairly recent version of OpenSSH on the server, and you will need a version 1 or 2 SSH Client.

To connect, use the address shell.gradwell.net, then give the username and password that you set up with the account. You can check your username through the control panel, but you will need your old password if you wish to change your UNIX shell password. If you have lost your shell password, please contact support.

SSH clients are available for most platforms, and you may find information in the following locations:

• For Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris and other Unixes
• For Windows and Macintosh Users
• In Java
  

Basic configuration

When you purchase a Web Standard or higher account you will receive a UNIX shell a/c on our Linux user login server, shell.gradwell.net.

Further information on logging in to this account can be found elsewhere in this section.

Your home directory will be in the /home directory, so, for the user joe, it would be /home/joe/.

In your home directory you will find a number of directories and files:

[joe@shell joe]# ls -al
total 17
drwxr-xr-x 6 joe users 512 Apr 2 16:31 .
drwxr-xr-x 61 root wheel 1536 Apr 2 16:31 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 joe users 628 Apr 2 16:31 .cshrc
-rw-r--r-- 1 joe users 299 Apr 2 16:31 .login
-rw-r--r-- 1 joe users 160 Apr 2 16:31 .login_conf
-rw------- 1 joe users 371 Apr 2 16:31 .mail_aliases
-rw-r--r-- 1 joe users 331 Apr 2 16:31 .mailrc
-rw-r--r-- 1 joe users 722 Apr 2 16:31 .profile
-rw-r--r-- 1 joe users 11 Apr 2 16:31 .qmail
-rw-r--r-- 1 joe users 11 Apr 2 16:31 .qmail-default
-rw------- 1 joe users 276 Apr 2 16:31 .rhosts
-rw-r--r-- 1 joe users 852 Apr 2 16:31 .shrc
drwx------ 5 joe users 512 Apr 2 16:31 Maildir
drwxr-xr-x 2 joe users 512 Apr 2 16:31 ftp
drwxr-xr-x 2 joe users 512 Apr 2 16:31 logs
drwx---r-x 4 joe users 512 Apr 2 16:31 webs

Your webs directory is designed to contain all your web pages and cgi scripts.

The ftp and logs directory are used for virtual ftp hosting.

The .qmail files contain instructions for the email delivered to your userid@shell.gradwell.net. By default the mail will be delivered to the Maildir directory. For more information, read the "dot-qmail" man page.

Advanced settings and troubleshooting

To change your UNIX shell password, you must login to the control panel and use the form on the ‘Unix Users’ page. Password changes take effect within an hour.

Installed Software

shell.gradwell.net has a range of useful Linux utilities installed. If you need anything adding, please raise a support request. We don't guarantee to install all requested utilities.

Installing Your Own Software

shell.gradwell.net is mainly here for customers to run scripts on, but it does have a full compiler toolchain installed. You are welcome to compile and install any software that you need (e.g. CGI binaries to run on your web site), but please do not install your own web server onto shell.gradwell.net.

We update shell.gradwell.net regularly to pick up the latest security patches. These updates may break any software that you have installed. Please make sure you keep a copy of the source code for the software in case you need to re-compile it.