Originally Posted by fastreplies

Let me ask you something
Would you rather prefer to feel comfortable knowing that your host is taking every possible step to protect servers that host your site from downtime due to hacking or, the hell with security, just let them in?

I specifically seek out hosts that give shell access. It's a requirement for me. Without shell access, I do not sign up.

I have no problem with that. I'm confident that if it's a shared host, they'll put me in a jailbroken environment so I won't have to worry about getting into the wrong files. Obviously, reviews are also important to me, so I'll do my research before I go to a host that doesn't provide a secure environment.

To each his own, I guess. Personally, I don't like using the mouse a lot of I don't have to; my fingers get really achy with repetitive movements.

The point people often forget about "jailed" SSH shells is that they're pretty weak! There isn't any way to provide shell access where the user cannot escalate themselves to root privileges and therefore potentially cause problems.

As for the faxing some ID etc. I really don't see why that helps? Firstly I'd hope to know who someone is based on the fact they paid me - if you have any doubts about that then you're looking at a chargeback etc. anyway so you already have problems of sorts.

The notion that providing SSH explicitly increases costs is just plain false IMO - but... obviously when your £5/mo customer with shell access decides to exploit the server in some way using their escalated privileges (which they found how to do via a simple Google search btw) it ends up costing you a lot more than £5/mo in customers who leave your shared servers or even just in admin time to restore backups and so on.

Oh, and before anyone decides to explain that they're really good and have no malicious intent - that's great, but what about the guy that just brute forced your SSH account? Or didn't need to try so hard because you set your password to 'password'

SSH is only offered by shared hosts who don't have a clue about the problems they're creating for themselves. That's pretty much the reason why it tends to be the smaller hosts that offer it.

If you want or really need SSH then get yourself a VPS. Don't want to manage a VPS? Get a managed VPS; any provider who understands won't have any issues offering you SSH on a VPS as the worst that happens is your VPS gets nuked - other customers shouldn't be affected (although possible for some disruption caused by short-term network abuse or similar).

Without shell access, I do not sign up.

You might have lots of troubles while lloking for web host mate. But I believe that you can get approved customer with any web hosting company to get shell access.

Originally Posted by ~ServerPoint~

But I believe that you can get approved customer with any web hosting company to get shell access.

Well... you didn't read my post - Layershift certainly won't offer SSH access to shared hosting customers under any circumstances for the reasons I've already stated. So you're incorrect that any hosting provider will offer it if you talk to them in the right way, and as above I wouldn't want to be anywhere near a provider that followed that principle.

It was according tamar's host. Maybe you misunderstood me?

Originally Posted by fastreplies

From CuteFTP you can chmod your files, edit configuration, move, rename, delete, create directories etc. and if you need something custom then tech support usuly will help you out.

So, why do you need to use shell access if you can do whatever you need from within
any good FTP program?


fastreplies

To install an ircd perhaps ?, bots, bnc's etc.

It seems that many bad things can be done through shell. And the company OP was interetsed in (Santrex.net) offer that separately from web hosting accounts. Don't they afraid to provide such things? Or Santrex resell the services from someone?

Originally Posted by ~ServerPoint~

You might have lots of troubles while lloking for web host mate. But I believe that you can get approved customer with any web hosting company to get shell access.

That's why I look for hosts that allow shell access.

Originally Posted by pajka

To install an ircd perhaps ?, bots, bnc's etc.

Nope. My intentions are not "malicious" (if you will).

I personally am a CLI person, not a GUI person. It's just a personal preference and nothing else.