🚀 go-pugleaf

cberry@cinenet.net (Craig Berry) writes:

>Rick Ellis (ellis@ftel.net) wrote:
>: In article <32DA734A.167EB0E7@net.com>, J. Prakash <prakash@net.com> wrote:
>: Huh?  Shell accounts take more resources and have a larger security
>: risk.  One person doing an ftp on a dial-up PPP doesn't have much impact.
>: One person doing an ftp on a shell login can use a large portion of your
>: Internet bandwidth.

>Seriously don't follow this argument.  FTP to a shell account involves N 
>bits/second coming in over the Net connection, presumably a T1 or higher, 
>or at the very least a 56k line.  FTP to a PPP remote involves the same 
>volume of incoming data, probably at the same rate due to local (ISP) 
>buffering...then the same volume of data being sent *out* again over a 
>slow phone line.  Seems that for the same FTP up/download, doing it to a 
>shell account involves *less* overhead than to a PPP account.

>Now, of course, once the data's on the shell account, it will likely be
>moved to the client's home machine sooner or later, either via a protocol
>(zmodem, ftp) or simply by being displayed to the telnet screen.  But a
>certain amount of filtering may occur at the ISP ("Let's see...read first
>couple of pages...nah, not interesting...rm foo.txt"), for a net savings
>even taking this into account. 

    Hmm.  I can see both ways, but in the end, I think that shell accounts,
at least under our circumstances, do lead to increased bandwidth utilization,
as well as, as previously mentioned, being a greater security risk and
tech-support time-waster.  You can get around both of the last, though.

    We started two years ago this month, and at the time, one of the two
competitors in town (Omaha, by the way), offered shell accounts and had a
halfway-decent base of more technical users, but was providing crappy service.
Basically they were using a couple of PC's running Interactive SVR2 Unix
(I kid you not!) and had a 56k dedicated pipe, which they used for net
access AND a full newsfeed.  Snore city.

    Nowadays, if I were starting up an ISP that was oriented toward dialup
access, I doubt I'd bother providing shell access, unless I was in a very
large town with a lot of technical users.  Shell access tends to attract
two types of users: one being technical people who have dedicated internet
access at work, but are behind a nasty firewall and don't get a newsfeed, and
the other being people who think that a 8086 PC with a 2400 baud modem is
a great way to get on the net.  :-)

    The first crowd is usually fairly cool, but will suck up bandwidth on a
bursty basis, because they tend to do things like read news, pull off dirty
pics or posted "warez" in large quantities, and either suck them back to
their work PC to load onto media (lots of bandwidth, shorter time) or download
them from a home PC later (not much bandwidth, longer period, and it stays
off your internet link, I prefer this).

    The second bunch, while not a bandwidth problem, has proven for us to be
a real pain in the *ss, because they're non-technical and want lots of
handholding using a Unix system.

    I pretty much solved the second "problem" by telling people with cruddy
PCs that I'd give them a shell account, and set up a menu structure for them
with Pine and Tin, but they were basically on their own; I just plain don't
have time to help them learn Unix.

    If you're in a market with lots of companies that have dedicated net
connections, offering shell accounts can give you an advantage as long as
you're willing to have short periods of high-bandwidth usage while people
suck large files back to work.

    Anyone out there who hasn't started an ISP yet, though, take note: decide
up front whether you want to do it or not, and stick with it.  If I tried to
get rid of shell accounts now, quite a few people would scream bloody murder,
leave, and probably bad-mouth us.  Had I never offered it in the first place,
I may have gotten a very few less customers, but had less support to deal with
as well.  And less security concerns, like people easily getting my list of
customer accounts.

    BTW, I forgot a third type - "hacker dudez".  I keep an eagle eye on
regular shell users who have PPP access, and finally had to shut compiler
access off after having it available for 1.5 years due to a couple of bad
apples.

    In the end, I think that as long as you make it clear that shell access
is for technical people and on a "do it yourself" basis (up to a point),
it can be okay to have and can get you contacts for dedicated customers,
but if you're not able/willing to serve anything but dialup, I wouldn't
bother with the hassle.

    Just my two cents!  I'm no "wizard", but I've been an ISP for two years,
which is pretty long in this business, and on the net since '88, which is
an eternity as far as that goes.  :)

--
Tim Russell      System Admin, Probe Technology      email: russell@probe.net
   "It has become appallingly clear that mankind's technology has finally
    surpassed his humanity."                            - Albert Einstein