I'm glad you found us. Look around, join and feel at home.
Welcome to freeshell.de
freeshell.de is a service provider since 2002-09-19. We are non-profit and are 20 years in existence. This service permanently accepts new users. Becoming a member is easy: the accounts are postcard-ware. This system focuses on anonymity, freedom of information and freedom of speech. We also try to provide the latest in cryptography regarding the services provided here. About 3000 people from literally around the world already sent a postcard in. Are you next? My login on the systems shell is “sk” by the way. Drop me a line, any time.
The main purpose of this system is in providing free Linux shell accounts. These are basically accounts on a server running Ubuntu Server OS (Debian GNU/Linux, in former iterations) to which you can login to remotely and make use of it for your own purposes. But behold, this is just the beginning. Over the time it was enriched will all sorts of extra services and software you will find in a table on the bottom of this page and here.
Until the beginning of 2005 the project was run from my home on a line with 384 kbit/s upstream and dynamic IP. Time went by and a private homes DSL line didn’t match the needs anymore.
Let’s see how the project evolved by describing some past milestones:
→ Year 2002: The beginning.
Machine: Pentium I (233 MHz), on my balcony. In summer, and in winter…
OS: Debian GNU/Linux 3.0
Bandwidth: 768 kbit/s downstream, 128 kbit/s upstream
Homepage: https://web.archive.org/web/20021011204402/http://nic.nac.wdyn.de/
(Original pictures. Click for zoom.)
→ Year 2003: Relocation. System went inside. Slightly updated hardware.
Machine: Pentium III (550 MHz)
OS: Debian GNU/Linux 3.1
Bandwidth: 768 kbit/s downstream, 128 kbit/s upstream
Homepage: https://web.archive.org/web/20030603072017/http://nic.nac.wdyn.de/
(Original pictures. Click for zoom. The right one is the old logo/name of the project.)
→ Year 2005: Moved the system to Hetzner data center. New hardware.
Machine: AMD Athlon 3000+ (1.0 GB RAM, 160GB HDD)
OS: Debian GNU/Linux 3.1
Bandwidth: 100 MBit/s (duplex)
Homepage: https://web.archive.org/web/20050511082627/http://nic-nac-project.de/
→ Year 2007: Moved to Strato data center
Machine: AMD Opteron 148 – 2.0 GB RAM – 160GB RAID1
OS: Debian GNU/Linux 4.0
Bandwidth: 100 MBit/s (duplex)
Homepage: https://web.archive.org/web/20070206154613/http://nic-nac-project.org/index.php
→ Year 2010: Moved to Laxin data center
Machine: Intel Core2 – 4.0 GB RAM – 500GB RAID (Mirror)
OS: Debian GNU/Linux 6.0 (squeeze), 64 Bit
Bandwidth: 100 MBit/s (duplex)
Homepage: https://web.archive.org/web/20111022030011/http://www.freeshell.de/
→ Year 2016: Hardware upgrade within the same data centre
Machine: Intel Xeon E3 – 32 GB ECC RAM
OS: Debian GNU/Linux 8.0 (Jessie), 64 Bit
Bandwidth: 1 Gbit/s (duplex)
Homepage: https://web.archive.org/web/20170604141128/https://freeshell.de/
→ Year 2021: Migration to a new server (hardware life-cycle and fresh base install) !
The detailed specs and services as of today are the following:
| Attribute | Value |
|---|---|
| Operating system | Ubuntu 20.04 LTS “focal fossa” with ESM and Livepatch |
| Kernel | Linux Kernel 5.4.0-xx (“/proc” with “hidepid=2” option) |
| CPU | Intel Xeon (E-2176G) |
| RAM | 64 GB ECC |
| HDD | 8.0 TB (RAID 1) |
| Quota (personal) | 20 GB in your home directory + 20 GB Owncloud space + MySQL |
| Personal resource limits (“ulimit -a”) | 150 max user processes, 1024 open files |
| WAN connectivity | 1 GBit/s bandwidth (full-duplex), IPV4 and IPV6 connectivity |
| Database | MySQL 8.0.xx (2 databases per user) |
| Server location | Germany |
| Backup concept | Backup + Backup-Copy (technology used: “Veeam Agent for Linux”) |
| E-Mail system | MTA is postfix / Mailbox is in “Maildir”-Format / Dovecot for IMAP |
| Groupware (optional) | Kopano (Zarafa) is implemented here for ActiveSync, Calendaring, … |
| Personal “crontab” and “at” jobs? | Yes |
| Background jobs (“screen”, “tmux”) ? | Yes |
| Private TCP/UDP port, on request | Yes |
| Account inactivity period? | None. Your account with all the files remain forever. |
| Homepage URL (with PHP7, CGI, PY) | https://freeshell.de/yourname/ (and https://freeshell.de/~yourname/) |
| Missing programs on the shell ? | Everything from official Ubuntu Repos will be installed on request ! |
→ Year 2022: 20th anniversary!
