SDF Public Access Unix System

I run a public unix(openbsd) shell for fun, I call it my social network platform it sort of sucks, no users, ip6 only, a bunch of vm's on an old underpowered router running in my closet. But feel free to stop by and set up a .plan if you have nothing better to do.

ssh to applicant@register.public.outband.net

instructions at https://www.public.outband.net note that it's ip6 only.

It is pretty pointless, nobody needs or wants a unix shell account in this day and age. But I had fun setting it up, it started as an exercise to see what a shared multiuser postgres install would look like and got a little out of control. My current project is getting a rack of raspberry pi's(6 of them in a cute little case) hooked in as physical application nodes.

Named after the Super Dimension Fortress from the Macross anime series. If you like mecha i recommend checking out the original series (it might look dated in some regards but still worth a watch. And the Do You Remember Love is a must watch after you finished the series, a grandiose animated spectacle, one of the most impressive animated films I've seen)

If you are not feeling like watching a long series, I recommend checking out Macross Plus, from the author of Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo

The series is known as Robotech in the USA. The original series is not available legally in the USA to my knowledge but should be available on Japanese blu rays with english subtitles or on your favorite Linux ISO sharing website. The rest of the entries are on Disney+ or the aforementioned websites.

Finally got to log into a vms system! I was looking to do that over 20 years ago but never could find one.

Somehow I still remembered most of the shell syntax in a book I read about it probably in 2001. Don't ask me ... I don't know how either.

Got bored in about 10 minutes but still, another box checked off!

Their section on Plan 9:

https://sdf.org/plan9/

Side note: here's my workflow for running Plan 9 on Windows:

https://youtu.be/IzEa2L_Pgw0?si=unM5l2-_i_g-NYKP

I've been fortunate enough to know Stephen Jones of SDF through his running of the local Seattle retro computing event (now rebranded as VCF PNW)

He's an absolutely kind soul who is deeply interested in all kinds of retro projects. I wish there were more folks like him in tech generally

I found a way to escape their shell (so you can run whatever you want), if you're not verified, it involves multiple steps to archive this. I mailed them 2x to their membership address, but since today no reaction. I asked also in their IRC.

Just a question to HN: should I wait more, try again? Or should I simply publish the vulnerabilities somewhere? If yes, where? It's my first time that I found a vulnerability at my own, not sure how to deal with that.

I wrote a bit on the SDF if you are interested: https://rz01.org/sdf/

SDF is cool, I commend their efforts of keeping a pub unix going! To me it feels like a stronghold of the "old school" web, similar to certain builtin board systems.

I regularly visit and enjoy reading the phlogs of their members as well.

just got my stickers from there yesterday! :-) i wish my less cs-oriented friends could see how cool i think the sdf is, lol; and, that some kind of "small-web" system, complete with the self-expression the sdf offers via web-hosting, a radio station(!), etc., was accessible to more people (not at the fault of anyone; just that there's a lot to the internet that most people will never see). :>

From the FAQ: "What is SDF"

> While we did initially start out on a single computer in 1987, the

> SDF is now a network of 8 64bit enterprise class servers running

> NetBSD realising a combined processing power of over 21.1 GFLOPS!

Which piqued my interest about how that compares to today's computers. nVidia's venerable 1080Ti from 2017 measures about 11300 GFLOPS, or 11.3 teraFLOPS. About a fifty times increase.

Previously...

SDF Public Access Unix System - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32340635 - Aug 2022 (29 comments)

SDF Public Access Unix System - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31076886 - April 2022 (46 comments)

SDF Public Access Unix System - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14940790 - Aug 2017 (29 comments)

SDF – Public Access Unix System - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14134798 - April 2017 (51 comments)

Still going strong. I started there when they were still on DEC alphas.

"this page was generated using ksh, sed and awk"

Yesterday was NetBSD's 33rd Birthday. Nice time to share it :)

A great webhost, too. You can log in and edit html/index.html directly or scp stuff up.

I had an account there years ago but never really saw the point. I was already SSHing in from a shell, just to end up at another, different one. Kind of whimsical I guess, but ultimately of scant practical use.

Omg, we can access even ancient OSes, this is amazing!

I've been on it forever, it's such a great resource

I miss Jynx from SDF, he will be missed, btw.

I love SDF. Super reliable and awesome community.

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