You Can Use the Internet the Old-School Unixy Way With Shell Accounts

If you were lucky enough to have internet access in the early ’90s, it was likely through a Unix shell account over a dialup modem. Most regular users have moved on to direct internet connections, but you can still get a shell account, and there’s some cool stuff you can do with one.

What Is a Shell Account?

A shell account is what it sounds like: an account on a remote system that gives you access to a shell. You type commands at the shell and receive output in the terminal as you would in a terminal window on a modern Linux PC.

When regular people started to get access to the internet around the start of the 1990s, this was the only way to get on the net. Customers would dial into a remote machine, typically running some flavor of Unix, using a modem and a communications program. They could then access internet programs like email, Usenet, or text-mode web and Gopher browsers like Lynx. This was because most home computers didn’t have TCP/IP stacks built in like modern OSes do. This meant that they couldn’t connect directly to the internet.

You can see how ubiquitous shell accounts were in the early ’90s in this 1993 episode of “The Computer Chronicles”:

Dialing in using a modem and terminal emulator was already common on PCs. This was how people already connected to services like CompuServe and local bulletin board systems. Anyone who wanted to surf the net in the early ’90s would sign up for a local ISP and dial in the same way they had been using other dial-up services.

Even after the internet became mainstream in the mid-90s and PCs and Macs could dial into the internet directly, direct dial-up connections were more expensive than shell accounts. This changed toward the decade’s end when dial-up got cheap and ISPs started eliminating shell accounts. The new users didn’t want to use the terminal, and providers considered shell accounts a security risk due to the level of control they offered users on their servers, as mentioned in a 2000 Washington Post article about pioneering ISP Netcom’s decision to shut down its shell accounts.

You can still find providers offering shell accounts if you know where to look. These days, they piggyback on your existing internet connection using SSH rather than a dial-up modem.

What Can You Do With a Shell Account?

Even though shell accounts aren’t nearly as common today as they used to be, they have a lot to offer serious internet users. Here are some of the neat things you can do on a shell account.

Learning a New OS

You might want to try out a new flavor of Linux or Unix, such as one of the BSDs. Or you may be completely new to Unix or Linux. A shell account gives you an easy way to try out a new OS without having to install it on your computer or even download anything,

Managed Environment

With a local installation of Linux or any other OS, you’re responsible for maintaining the system, making backups, and performing upgrades. With a shell account, this job is left to the system administrators. This can take some pressure off of you so you can keep exploring the system and using its utilities.

Fun and Friendly Community

One reason to sign up for a shell account is that shell providers often have friendly user communities. Many providers have their own IRC, Usenet, or bulletin boards where users can exchange messages. The users tend to be other Linux and Unix enthusiasts. These spaces are just fun to hang out in.

Using Networking Utilities Remotely

Having access to a remote machine can be useful for troubleshooting connection problems. You can run networking commands like ping or traceroute on a shell account can help you figure out if a problem is just affecting you or the whole internet.

Email

Many shell providers offer email with their accounts. They can be good secondary accounts or even primary accounts if you want an old-school way to get your email. You can even use desktop clients on some of them.

Web Space

Many shell accounts offer web space for their users’ personal home pages. If you’ve always wanted to learn web development, a shell account might be a good place to practice. When I was studying at CSU East Bay, they had Sun Solaris-based shell accounts for all students for this reason. I also had one on a CS server for a web design class.

Persistent Sessions With a Terminal Multiplexer

Remote sessions are where terminal multiplexers like GNU Screen or tmux shine. If your Wi-Fi connection drops, you can reconnect and pick up where you left off. You can detach your session, log out, and then log back in later as if nothing happened. This is how many IRC users seem to stay on forever.

Development Tools

Unix and Linux have been great development environments for a long time. Many shell providers offer tools such as editors, compilers, debuggers, and libraries. They are installed and managed for you, leaving you to concentrate on your coding tasks. It’s a great way to learn to code without having to worry about what to install.

Storage

Many shell providers offer space for file storage. You can upload and download files to and from your account using FTP. This is also essential if you’re building a website.

Choosing a Shell Account

If you want a shell account, you can go with a paid or free option. Panix is an ISP that has been around for over 30 years and still offers paid accounts.

There are also free shell account providers that are operated as a hobby as a kind of throwback to the BBS era. Many of them still take donations. As with public broadcasting, how much you donate can unlock certain features. Good ones to try are SDF (disclosure: I’m sustaining “MetaARPA” member) and Blinkenshell.

Logging in to Your Shell Account

Once you’ve signed up for your shell account, you can log in using SSH with the username and password you chose when you signed up. On Linux, macOS, and Windows PowerShell or WSL you can use the SSH command in a terminal:

        
ssh user@example.com
    

You can also install PuTTY if you prefer a graphical client.

Staying Online With a Terminal Multiplexer

If you want to maintain your session between logins, you can use a terminal multiplexer such as GNU Screen or tmux, as mentioned earlier. By detaching your session, you can leave it running and come back to it when you log in again. Because this can use system resources, not all shell providers will allow you to do this, or will only let you run persistent processes when you pay for the privilege. Be sure to check your provider’s terms of service.

With or without a terminal multiplexer, a shell account can be a different text-based way to use the internet.