[COFF] Re: [TUHS] Re: the wheel of reincarnation goes sideways

[Michael Parson <mparson@bl.org>]

On 2023-07-05 18:58, Grant Taylor via COFF wrote:
> On 7/5/23 4:48 PM, Dan Cross wrote:
>> I thought some folks here might find this interesting.  Someone else
>> today reminded me of tilde.town, which is a publicly accessible
>> machine running Linux. They have a shocking amount of use:
> 
> O.o?
> 
>> tilde% hostname
>> tilde.town
>> tilde% uname -a
>> Linux tilde.town 5.15.0-58-generic #64-Ubuntu SMP Thu Jan 5 11:43:13
>> UTC 2023 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
>> tilde% uptime
>>   21:38:01 up 156 days, 17:15, 454 users,  load average: 3.82, 4.40, 
>> 4.19
>> tilde%
> 
> Well I'll be.  Someone is running a multi-user Unix system.  That's
> something I've always wanted to do or find someone doing.
> 
>> Not quite a thousand users logged in simultaneously, but half that. If
>> one counts the number of processes associated with pseudoterminals,
>> it's more (I guess a lot of users are running tmux and/or screen).

There's also nyx.net.  I've had an account with them since it was 
nyx.cs.du.edu
and was run on a Sun Sparcstation 10 and a Sparcstation 2 running SunOS 
4.1.x.

At some point in the late 90s/early 2000s, they moved to x86 systems 
running
Linux.  Looks like it has been running in AWS since 2016 or so. 
Currently is
running on Ubuntu 20.04.  Near as I can tell, they are still accepting 
new signups.

I've been running this domain (bl.org) as a multi-user system for 
friends and
family for a few decades.  Started out on my Amiga 3000 running NetBSD 
1.6 hanging
off my ISDN line at home, then a friend donated his DEC Multia/Alpha 
system to the
cause. When I changed jobs and lost the ISDN, I found a local colo and 
built a 1U
x86 system which lasted for a few years, bouncing between colos as I 
found better
deals, and is now a VM with Linode, still running NetBSD (8.1, need to 
update it one
of these days).  I think I'm down to about 3 active users these days, 
peaked at about
maybe 8-10.  Most of my users just use me for pop/imap/web mail that 
isn't one of the
major free providers, though I also provide primary/secondary DNS and MX 
for a few
domains run by friends.

-- 
Michael Parson
Pflugerville, TX