Welcome to LES! Thanks for asking for a free Alpine shell account at MetalVPS fmt!
Since you have a very new account, would you like, please, to share with us a little about yourself, like who you are and where you are? Maybe you could please share about your Linux experience and also more specifically what you plan to do with your shell account?
Of course, to set up your account, we need your ed25519 public ssh key. So maybe you might want to share your key with us as well?
Thanks again for asking for an account! I wish you a good day!
Best wishes and kindest regards!
Tom
Hi, I got the information from www.nodeseek.com and I will use the shell account to test the bash script.
And my ed25519 publish ssh key is above.
@19930618 Hello! I made a new account and new keys for you. Please check your private messages. Let's see if you can get in now. Have fun! Best wishes! Tom
Welcome to LES! Thanks for asking for a free Alpine shell account at MetalVPS fmt!
Since you have a very new account, would you like, please, to share with us a little about yourself, like who you are and where you are? Maybe you could please share about your Linux experience and also more specifically what you plan to do with your shell account?
Of course, to set up your account, we need your ed25519 public ssh key. So maybe you might want to share your key with us as well?
Thanks again for asking for an account! I wish you a good day!
Best wishes and kindest regards!
Tom
Hi, I got the information from www.nodeseek.com and I will use the shell account to test the bash script.
And my ed25519 publish ssh key is above.
On our default install of Alpine 3.17 edge, who is a symlink to busybox. who seems to work with the -H flag at least enough to print headers, but who does not seem to list logged in users with the -a flag or without any flags.
The busybox who source linked below (the last of the listed references) doesn't seem to require coreutils, but maybe I missed something.
Would some kind soul please explain why who shows the headers with the -H option but doesn't show me and others besides me who may also be logged in?
Thanks!
Tom
fmt:~# which who
/usr/bin/who
fmt:~# ls -l /usr/bin/who
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 12 Dec 11 02:00 /usr/bin/who -> /bin/busybox
fmt:~# who
fmt:~# who -a
fmt:~# who -H
USER TTY IDLE TIME HOST
fmt:~# apk info | grep coreutils
fmt:~# apk info | wc
84 84 940
fmt:~#
Welcome to LES! Thanks for asking for a free Alpine shell account at MetalVPS fmt!
Since you have a very new account, would you like, please, to share with us a little about yourself, like who you are and where you are? Maybe you could please share about your Linux experience and also more specifically what you plan to do with your shell account?
Of course, to set up your account, we need your ed25519 public ssh key. So maybe you might want to share your key with us as well?
Thanks again for asking for an account! I wish you a good day!
Best wishes and kindest regards!
Tom
Hi, I got the information from www.nodeseek.com and I will use the shell account to test the bash script.
And my ed25519 publish ssh key is above.
Thanks for your kind words! It seems you have some fun stuff running on the server. Wanna tell everyone about it?
By the way, there is
fmt:~# df -h /mnt
Filesystem Size Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1 915.8G 60.0K 869.2G 0% /mnt
fmt:~#
plus also another similar disk that isn't mounted but could be. Please feel free to put files on /mnt if you wish. But please do keep in mind the Warnings in the OP.
I am making some progress on the who and last issue. More on that before too long!
Nice username! Thanks for posting! If you do not mind, could you please share a little about who and where you are? Also your Linux experience? Plus, if there is a reason why you want to use an RSA key instead of an ed25519 key, may we please know what the reason is? Last, but not least, it would be great if you could share a little more specifically about what you want to do on the server. Thanks again!
Best wishes from Sonora!
Tom
Hi Tom,
I am a programmer from Asia. I like learning new things every day particularly about software development.
My Linux experience started with Ubuntu years ago and, I have been using it as my primary OS since then. I have not used Alpine Linux before, though. That is the main reason why I would like to try this Alpine shell offered from you, so as to learn more about Alpine Linux and to see if it is any better than Debian-based OS etc.
I prefer using RSA keys because my script generates this key type by default. And I just don't want to change my script for now. Hope you don't mind about it.
Nice username! Thanks for posting! If you do not mind, could you please share a little about who and where you are? Also your Linux experience? Plus, if there is a reason why you want to use an RSA key instead of an ed25519 key, may we please know what the reason is? Last, but not least, it would be great if you could share a little more specifically about what you want to do on the server. Thanks again!
Best wishes from Sonora!
Tom
Hi Tom,
I am a programmer from Asia. I like learning new things every day particularly about software development.
My Linux experience started with Ubuntu years ago and, I have been using it as my primary OS since then. I have not used Alpine Linux before, though. That is the main reason why I would like to try this Alpine shell offered from you, so as to learn more about Alpine Linux and to see if it is any better than Debian-based OS etc.
I prefer using RSA keys because my script generates this key type by default. And I just don't want to change my script for now. Hope you don't mind about it.
Your account password is in a file in your home directory. Please feel free to change your password.
It would be helpful if you kindly would let us know if you can log in without any issues. Also, could you share with us a few more details, please? In what languages do you program? May we please see your script?
Hope you have fun on the server! We're glad to have you aboard!
As yet the only Alpine repo that's enabled on the server is Alpine's edge/main.
I don't know much about nix.
How does nix handle Alpine's musl libc?
How would nix prevent interference with the packages installed by the Alpine package manager?
Here are some more questions for possible consideration:
What does everyone think about giving some or all neighbors sudo?
How about installing some kind of containers or VMs, letting neighbors do whatever they want inside their container or VM, but not giving sudo on the node?
Does anyone (maybe those who get containers, VMs, and/or sudo?) want to contribute to the $30/month cost of the server?
It's okay with me just to leave things as they are for now. But I am equally happy to consider alternatives. Special thanks to @terrorgen for helping get the discussion started!
A reboot maybe as soon as tomorrow, due to me trying to fix the who and last problem. Please see this comment by Alice. I will post here before and after.
Downtime for maintenance December 27 and 28. This is from @Cloudie.
Nice username! Thanks for posting! If you do not mind, could you please share a little about who and where you are? Also your Linux experience? Plus, if there is a reason why you want to use an RSA key instead of an ed25519 key, may we please know what the reason is? Last, but not least, it would be great if you could share a little more specifically about what you want to do on the server. Thanks again!
Best wishes from Sonora!
Tom
Hi Tom,
I am a programmer from Asia. I like learning new things every day particularly about software development.
My Linux experience started with Ubuntu years ago and, I have been using it as my primary OS since then. I have not used Alpine Linux before, though. That is the main reason why I would like to try this Alpine shell offered from you, so as to learn more about Alpine Linux and to see if it is any better than Debian-based OS etc.
I prefer using RSA keys because my script generates this key type by default. And I just don't want to change my script for now. Hope you don't mind about it.
Your account password is in a file in your home directory. Please feel free to change your password.
It would be helpful if you kindly would let us know if you can log in without any issues. Also, could you share with us a few more details, please? In what languages do you program? May we please see your script?
Hope you have fun on the server! We're glad to have you aboard!
Best!
Tom
Hi Tom,
Yes, I can login without issues.
And I am glad to see that the server has IPv6 connectivity out of the box. Good job!
Probably I'll use the Alpine shell to test my software for IPv6 compatibility. But it is still undecided yet.
@Not_Oles said: A reboot maybe as soon as tomorrow, due to me trying to fix the who and last problem. Please see this comment by Alice. I will post here before and after.
fmt:~# apk info utmps
utmps-0.1.2.0-r1 description:
A secure utmp/wtmp implementation
utmps-0.1.2.0-r1 webpage:
https://skarnet.org/software/utmps/ # If interested, please check this page. It explains a lot!
utmps-0.1.2.0-r1 installed size:
84 KiB
fmt:~#
utmps install
fmt:~# apk add utmps
(1/4) Installing skalibs (2.12.0.1-r0)
(2/4) Installing s6-ipcserver (2.11.1.2-r0)
(3/4) Installing utmps (0.1.2.0-r1)
Executing utmps-0.1.2.0-r1.pre-install
(4/4) Installing utmps-openrc (0.1.2.0-r1)
Executing busybox-1.35.0-r29.trigger
OK: 150 MiB in 91 packages
fmt:~# setup-utmp
* service utmp-prepare added to runlevel boot
* service utmpd added to runlevel boot
* service wtmpd added to runlevel boot
* service btmpd added to runlevel boot
* service utmp-init added to runlevel boot
* Caching service dependencies ... [ ok ]
* /run/utmps: creating directory
* /run/utmps: correcting owner
* Starting utmpd ... [ ok ]
* /var/log/wtmpd: creating directory
* /var/log/wtmpd: correcting mode
* /var/log/wtmpd: correcting owner
* Starting wtmpd ... [ ok ]
* /var/log/btmpd: creating directory
* /var/log/btmpd: correcting mode
* /var/log/btmpd: correcting owner
* Starting btmpd ... [ ok ]
setup-utmp: utmps services are now enabled. Use setup-utmp -n to disable them.
setup-utmp: note that user accounting may not be accurate until the next reboot.
fmt:~# date -u
Sun Dec 18 21:59:13 UTC 2022
fmt:~# sync
fmt:~# reboot
fmt:~# Connection to fmt.metalvps.com closed by remote host.
Connection to fmt.metalvps.com closed.
bash:~/cloudie-server/alpine$
Login after reboot
fmt:~# date -u
Sun Dec 18 22:05:45 UTC 2022
fmt:~# who
root pts/0 00:00 Dec 18 22:05:25 187.189.238.1
fmt:~# last
USER TTY HOST LOGIN TIME
root pts/0 187.189.238.1 Dec 18 22:05
reboot system boot 6.1.0-1-lts Dec 18 22:01
fmt:~# exit
"A single swap file or partition may be up to 128 MB in size. [...] [I]f you need 256 MB of swap, you can create two 128-MB swap partitions." (M. Welsh & L. Kaufman, Running Linux, 2e, 1996, p. 49)
@subenhon said:
That is intresting!
Can you make a account for me?
Congrats on your first post
Hi @subenhon! And welcome! Since you haven't posted a lot, we have not had a chance to get to know you. So how about introducing yourself to the community? Thanks! Best wishes! 👏
@subenhon said:
That is intresting!
Can you make a account for me?
Congrats on your first post
Hi @subenhon! And welcome! Since you haven't posted a lot, we have not had a chance to get to know you. So how about introducing yourself to the community? Thanks! Best wishes! 👏
I am a student,looking for a free server to learn linux and build a webapp.
I get the infomation from https://www.nodeseek.com/post-147-1, it saids I can get a linux shell account for free and use it to export http service to the internet , and I want to give it a try.
Yeah, numeric usernames seem to be questionable in some cases. Some distros and email systems don't seem to like Not_Oles as a username either!
While the ssh issue with this particular user might be because of the numeric name, there seems quite clearly to be more. I tried making an alphabetic account for him. I found that I couldn't login to any account using his key together with my key in authorized_keys. Moreover, where his key had been in authorized_keys, login seemed to fail permanently-- didn't work even after removing his key and leaving the known working key. He eventually sent me a private key as well. I could not log in with his public/private key set. So it seems that, even using an alphabetic account name, without the numeric name issue, this user's keys somehow borked ssh. For whatever little it's worth, he said he was making his keys on a non-Linux system.
Eventually I made a third account for him and I also made a set of keys. Tested and working, I sent it all to him, but haven't heard anything back as yet.
@subenhon said:
That is intresting!
Can you make a account for me?
Congrats on your first post
Hi @subenhon! And welcome! Since you haven't posted a lot, we have not had a chance to get to know you. So how about introducing yourself to the community? Thanks! Best wishes! 👏
I am a student,looking for a free server to learn linux and build a webapp.
I get the infomation from https://www.nodeseek.com/post-147-1, it saids I can get a linux shell account for free and use it to export http service to the internet , and I want to give it a try.
Hi again @subenhon! I am delighted to give you an account. What is being offered here might be different from what typically might be expected today for beginner web app programming. Please post your id25519 public key so I can set up your account. Maybe you also should check additional opportunities elsewhere. I wish you the best with your learning! Sincerely, Tom
Thanks for your kind words! It seems you have some fun stuff running on the server. Wanna tell everyone about it?
By the way, there is
fmt:~# df -h /mnt
Filesystem Size Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1 915.8G 60.0K 869.2G 0% /mnt
fmt:~#
plus also another similar disk that isn't mounted but could be. Please feel free to put files on /mnt if you wish. But please do keep in mind the Warnings in the OP.
I didn't remount the disk after today's reboot. Does anyone need it? If yes, maybe I should put it in fstab.
Thanks for your kind words! It seems you have some fun stuff running on the server. Wanna tell everyone about it?
By the way, there is
fmt:~# df -h /mnt
Filesystem Size Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1 915.8G 60.0K 869.2G 0% /mnt
fmt:~#
plus also another similar disk that isn't mounted but could be. Please feel free to put files on /mnt if you wish. But please do keep in mind the Warnings in the OP.
I didn't remount the disk after today's reboot. Does anyone need it? If yes, maybe I should put it in fstab.
Thanks! I will keep this in mind and maybe put the hard drive in fstab soon.
Want to share a few details about what you are running on the server? It seems interesting! I think everyone would like to hear a few details. I think everyone, myself included, would be grateful to you for sharing!
@subenhon said:
That is intresting!
Can you make a account for me?
Congrats on your first post
Hi @subenhon! And welcome! Since you haven't posted a lot, we have not had a chance to get to know you. So how about introducing yourself to the community? Thanks! Best wishes! 👏
I am a student,looking for a free server to learn linux and build a webapp.
I get the infomation from https://www.nodeseek.com/post-147-1, it saids I can get a linux shell account for free and use it to export http service to the internet , and I want to give it a try.
Hi again @subenhon! I am delighted to give you an account. What is being offered here might be different from what typically might be expected today for beginner web app programming. Please post your ed25519 public key so I can set up your account. Maybe you also should check additional opportunities elsewhere. I wish you the best with your learning! Sincerely, Tom
When you get a chance, please try it, and please let us know if you succeed in logging in.
Your password is in a file in your home directory. Please feel free to change your password.
You really have some hard work ahead, but also lots of fun and lots of very interesting stuff to learn! If you have questions, please feel free to post them here on LES, and the guys here will try to help you. I wish you the very best with your studies! 🚵
Comments
Hi, I got the information from www.nodeseek.com and I will use the shell account to test the bash script.
And my ed25519 publish ssh key is above.
ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAIMd8ZkZHJ9Zly0hvUaU7Pa+oopNeL6Lh/dITSFUHOQzQ alpine-221217
I got my account created and logged in. Thanks @Not_Oles
Why?
@19930618 Hello! I made a new account and new keys for you. Please check your private messages. Let's see if you can get in now. Have fun! Best wishes! Tom
MetalVPS
Hi @rcdfrd!
Your account has been provisioned! Welcome to MetalVPS!
You should be able to get in with something like:
ssh [email protected] -p 42365Please try to log in, and please let us know how it goes.
Your account has a password which you can find in a file in your home directory after you log in. Please feel free to change your password.
Please feel free to post here if you have any questions or need any help. Have fun on the server!
Best wishes and kindest regards,
Tom
MetalVPS
Hello!
lastalso does not work. It gives me headers but no error message and no information about logins.I found some information at https://serverfault.com/questions/1050094/why-does-last-fail-on-alpine-with-last-couldnt-open-file-dev-null-wtmp
I need to read the references on the linked serverfault page.
Thanks!
Best wishes! 
Tom
MetalVPS
Thanks, I can log in. This is really really cool.
Great! Glad it works for you!
Thanks for your kind words! It seems you have some fun stuff running on the server. Wanna tell everyone about it?
By the way, there is
plus also another similar disk that isn't mounted but could be. Please feel free to put files on /mnt if you wish.
But please do keep in mind the Warnings in the OP. 
I am making some progress on the
whoandlastissue. More on that before too long!I hope everyone is enjoying the weekend!
MetalVPS
I couldn't resist adding this comment to the OP! Thanks again @rcdfrd! 🤩
MetalVPS
Hi Tom,
I am a programmer from Asia. I like learning new things every day particularly about software development.
My Linux experience started with Ubuntu years ago and, I have been using it as my primary OS since then. I have not used Alpine Linux before, though. That is the main reason why I would like to try this Alpine shell offered from you, so as to learn more about Alpine Linux and to see if it is any better than Debian-based OS etc.
I prefer using RSA keys because my script generates this key type by default. And I just don't want to change my script for now. Hope you don't mind about it.
hey @Not_Oles, wonder if I can get sudo for the
apkcommandrationale: wanna install
nix. I can do it on my own computers but oh where's the fun?!The all seeing eye sees everything...
Hi @curl!
Thanks for your message! I went ahead and provisioned your account! Welcome to MetalVPS!
Maybe you can log in over IPv4 or IPv6 with something like:
ssh [email protected] -p 42365Your account password is in a file in your home directory. Please feel free to change your password.
It would be helpful if you kindly would let us know if you can log in without any issues. Also, could you share with us a few more details, please? In what languages do you program? May we please see your script?
Hope you have fun on the server! We're glad to have you aboard!
Best!
Tom
MetalVPS
Hi @terrorgen!
Looks like nix is available in Alpine's edge/testing repo: https://pkgs.alpinelinux.org/package/edge/testing/x86/nix
As yet the only Alpine repo that's enabled on the server is Alpine's edge/main.
I don't know much about nix.
How does nix handle Alpine's musl libc?
How would nix prevent interference with the packages installed by the Alpine package manager?
Here are some more questions for possible consideration:
What does everyone think about giving some or all neighbors sudo?
How about installing some kind of containers or VMs, letting neighbors do whatever they want inside their container or VM, but not giving sudo on the node?
Does anyone (maybe those who get containers, VMs, and/or sudo?) want to contribute to the $30/month cost of the server?
It's okay with me just to leave things as they are for now. But I am equally happy to consider alternatives. Special thanks to @terrorgen for helping get the discussion started!
Thanks in advance for your helpful comments!
Best wishes!
Tom
MetalVPS
Upcoming maintenance:
A reboot maybe as soon as tomorrow, due to me trying to fix the
whoandlastproblem. Please see this comment by Alice. I will post here before and after.Downtime for maintenance December 27 and 28. This is from @Cloudie.
Thanks!
MetalVPS
Hi Tom,
Yes, I can login without issues.
And I am glad to see that the server has IPv6 connectivity out of the box. Good job!
Probably I'll use the Alpine shell to test my software for IPv6 compatibility. But it is still undecided yet.
Here comes the reboot.
MetalVPS
How to get
whoandlastrunning on Alpine Linux!Looks like installing utmps might have been the needed tweak!
References
Update and upgrade
apk info on utmps package
utmps install
Login after reboot
MetalVPS
That is intresting!
Can you make a account for me?
Congrats on your first post
"A single swap file or partition may be up to 128 MB in size. [...] [I]f you need 256 MB of swap, you can create two 128-MB swap partitions." (M. Welsh & L. Kaufman, Running Linux, 2e, 1996, p. 49)
@Not_Oles could the username, with all digits, have problems logging in because begins with a number possibly ?
"Why can't Linux usernames begin with numbers?"
https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/287079
Hi @subenhon! And welcome! Since you haven't posted a lot, we have not had a chance to get to know you. So how about introducing yourself to the community? Thanks! Best wishes! 👏
MetalVPS
I am a student,looking for a free server to learn linux and build a webapp> @Not_Oles said:
I am a student,looking for a free server to learn linux and build a webapp.
I get the infomation from https://www.nodeseek.com/post-147-1, it saids I can get a linux shell account for free and use it to export http service to the internet , and I want to give it a try.
Yeah, numeric usernames seem to be questionable in some cases. Some distros and email systems don't seem to like Not_Oles as a username either!
While the ssh issue with this particular user might be because of the numeric name, there seems quite clearly to be more. I tried making an alphabetic account for him. I found that I couldn't login to any account using his key together with my key in authorized_keys. Moreover, where his key had been in authorized_keys, login seemed to fail permanently-- didn't work even after removing his key and leaving the known working key. He eventually sent me a private key as well. I could not log in with his public/private key set. So it seems that, even using an alphabetic account name, without the numeric name issue, this user's keys somehow borked ssh. For whatever little it's worth, he said he was making his keys on a non-Linux system.
Eventually I made a third account for him and I also made a set of keys. Tested and working, I sent it all to him, but haven't heard anything back as yet.
Fun times at MetalVPS!
MetalVPS
Hi again @subenhon! I am delighted to give you an account. What is being offered here might be different from what typically might be expected today for beginner web app programming. Please post your id25519 public key so I can set up your account. Maybe you also should check additional opportunities elsewhere. I wish you the best with your learning! Sincerely, Tom
MetalVPS
Ah, interesting.
Though unsure why SSH failed, at least the username might be fine then.
Yep, that's right!
MetalVPS
Fun Fact:
You can't use 'new' as email ID in cPanel, the filter and some functions will just broken.
Maybe they have fixed this now 😁
https://microlxc.net/
@rcdfrd
Please let me repeat something I asked yesterday even though you might not yet have seen it.
I didn't remount the disk after today's reboot. Does anyone need it? If yes, maybe I should put it in fstab.
MetalVPS
Put it in fstab is a good choice.
Thanks! I will keep this in mind and maybe put the hard drive in fstab soon.
Want to share a few details about what you are running on the server? It seems interesting! I think everyone would like to hear a few details. I think everyone, myself included, would be grateful to you for sharing!
Best wishes!
MetalVPS
Hi @subenhon!
Welcome to MetalVPS! Your account has been provisioned!
Maybe you can log in via IPv4 or IPv6 with something like:
ssh [email protected] -p 42365When you get a chance, please try it, and please let us know if you succeed in logging in.
Your password is in a file in your home directory. Please feel free to change your password.
You really have some hard work ahead, but also lots of fun and lots of very interesting stuff to learn! If you have questions, please feel free to post them here on LES, and the guys here will try to help you. I wish you the very best with your studies! 🚵
Tom
MetalVPS