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GeekNights 090810 - SSH
Tonight on GeekNights we discuss the one piece of software that we use more than almost anything else, SSH. In the news, there's a bank that lets you deposit checks via iPhone and Pranknet got busted.
Comments
I listened to the Connecticon one today, and I think Scott is right about the pigeons. The story comes from when they were filming Penn and Teller Get Killed. A caller to his show asked "How did you catch the pigeon? Were they trained?" and the story unfolded from there. I think they did have a pigeon trainer, but before he could get his "trained" pigeons to agree to being grabbed by Penn, Penn had already discovered his pigeon grabbing super powers.
So... yeah... I hate to say it, but I think Scott is right about this one.
EDIT: Lynx is actually pretty cool....
I agree that you shouldn't be able to yell fire in a crowded theater. We should have as much free speech as possible, but speech which creates or increases danger is definitely wrong. Free speech as I see it means there should be unlimited expression of ideas. Yelling extremely loudly in someone's ear is basically just violence, as you are physically damaging their ear. Also, libel and slander laws exist, despite freedom of the press, because spreading lies on a wide scale can directly cause damages, mostly financial in nature.
I do think that people should be able to speak out against the draft, as I do not think that such speech is actively dangerous. However, there is plenty of other speech out there that is dangerous, and should be illegal.
SSH also includes SCP (secure copy) and SFTP (secure file transfer protocol). They're both basically the same thing, but they are commands that transfer files over SSH. In other words, if you still use FTP you are a moron. FTP is dead, and has been dead for many years. There are almost no circumstances under which FTP is something you should ever use today.
Also, FTP/FTPS are more for creating file servers. You want to allow customers to access a certain set of files, or you want to create a bin for customers/clients to upload files into. These days, this activity is better served by creating a website with links to download available files over HTTP and web forms for clients to upload files. It's much more accessible and user friendly.
SCP/SFTP isn't meant to be used to create a file server in the way that FTP/FTPS is meant to. It's meant to be a secure copy. If I am authorized to have access to my desktop and five different servers I have to manage, I'm probalby going to need to transfer files between those six machines. When I do, I want to do it securely and easily. The scp command is basically the same as the cp command. You know, the command for copying a file. The only difference is that it allows you to copy to and from remote machines. Heck, you can even use it in place of the cp command to copy from local to local, and it will work.
If you need a file server, you probably want to use something like NFS/Samba/CIFS/DAV or some sort of NAS-type situation for your file serving. If you are file serving over the Internet, instead of just a local network, you probably want to use HTTP and some forms on a web-site, or some sort of P2P thing like bittorrent, depending on the nature of your file sharing. If you are copying files between machines just during the course of work, then scp is really the only thing you should be using.
FTP really doesn't have a place in the world anymore, even if you make it secure with FTPS.
Maybe you could do a podcast explaining why SFTP works better, and what kind of software we should use.
Of course, the things the customer can do are also extremely limited. You're stuck with whatever web server configuration they give you. Usually they have a database server also, and they let you create a handful of databases on it, and maybe they have mod_php instaled or some such. That's enough to run Wordpress or Vanilla, but that's about it.
The hosting we pay for is Linode. We pay $80 a month, but they have cheaper plans available. The way they work is they also split up one big computer into smaller pieces. The difference is that those smaller pieces are all complete virtual machines. So from the customer's point of view, it's exactly the same as if you had your own dedicated Linux machine. It has a real IP address on the Internet, it has RAM, CPU, disk space, and a bandwidth limit depending on how much you pay. You can do whatever the hell you want with it that isn't illegal or against terms of service.
Of course you can host web sites, but you can also do anything else a computer can do. You can run a game server. You can run a Jabber server. You can run a bittorrent tracker (if your bandwidth holds out). You can just browse the web from it. It's just a computer, effectively no different from the computer you are probably using right now (if you aren't mobile). It just happens to have a static IP address, and it is in a very safe data center where it is getting sweet love.
Granted, if you use something like dreamhost, you have to deal with the responsibilities of a webmaster. If you deal with something like Linode, you have to deal with the responsibilities of a systems administrator. There's a lot of stuff going on there you might not realize. It's only recommended if you know what you are doing. But if you do know what you are doing, or want to learn, then it is highly recommended to use real hosting, and not some piece of shit like Dreamhost.
Is it still fine to use FTP, or should I be using SFTP?
I use SSH so much, I take for granted all these things I do with it.
I guess I'll never be any kind of computer networky type person. Or not at any non-unprofessional level.