Shell / SSH access on shared hosting servers

[dukedave.com]

Hi,

I have been using eukhost. for several years without problem now; however there has been an issue of late which is forcing me to not renew my account at the end of its current period.

I no longer have shell/SSH access to my account.
Initially when connecting a "This feature has to be enabled" error was thrown; after contacting support it was enabled immediately. Great.
However approx 6 months ago and to this date I have been unable to connect.

After contacting the admins many times I have been told:

• It was disabled due to known security issues with SSH. (not my problem),
  Please send an email to support@eukhost.com (no reply)
  Why do you want it? (replied with justification... no reply)

Since eukhost are still stating this as one of their features (I assume no one else can access either?) and when I raised this point it was ignored in the reply email I am extremely unimpressed, hence my moving on.
Incidentally (I am not a lawyer), I assume that this is totally illegal. Not that I care, plenty of other providers!

Shame though, otherwise I have been very impressed; good uptime and performance.

Thoughts?

[andrew]

I still have access to my ssh on one of my domains, however when I got a new domain and requested it, I was initially told it was unavailable, and then later told when I pestered that if I wanted it, I could have it, but my hosting would need to be moved to a different server. The reason was that they have several servers and prefer keeping a majority without ssh access... the "less secure" servers have ssh access on a bizarre port.

Speak to them on MSN and ask them if they move your website hosting to a less secure server if they can give you the ssh access

[MRGTB]

If you mean using Putty to retore the database via SSH, yes I use it only yesterday to restore my database after doing some work

[rapidz.co.uk]

yeh, putty will restore your database. did for me.

[andrew]

I do lots of stuff via ssh on my servers because it's incredibly handy. I have limited ftp access at uni, and although cpanel is good, it's file program is a pain.

For example, to make a copy of a file in the same directory but with a different name, i have to navigate to it, select it, copy it, paste it somewhere, rename it, select it again, then move it to the folder I started out in. cp file1.php file2.php sure beats that!

It's also very handy for things like setting up and tweaking preferences on website hostings in terms of your config.inc.php (or equivelant) file

Andrew

[dukedave.com]

Good response time guys!

I would like true shell access - awkward customer I know
Have you had much luck with the online support? When ever I speak to them I always get answers but no action, which only adds to the aggravation.

[MRGTB]

The best way to use Putty, is to create a folder in your ROOT directory called "backup" for example. One level above your "public_html" folder so it cannot be accessed by the public.

Then FTP your database to that folder called "backup"

Then use this path in Putty below:

mysql -u yourusername -p yourpassword < /home/yourpassword/database/databasename.sql

Then you will be promted for the database password before it is restored

Because I use vBulletin, I chmod that folder to 777 so I can download the database backup direct to that folder on the server via the admincp on my board.

[dukedave.com]

Just to let the thread know before this gets silly.
I don't want to restore a DB, I want shell access

Hence the horror:

[dave@suzy ~]$ ssh dukedave.com
ssh: connect to host dukedave.com port 22: Connection timed out

Incidentally, Andrew - what port do you connect on?
Might as well try my luck!

[tomythius]

I had the same problem (and started a new topic before seeing this...) I used to love SSH access. Didn't use it for a while and then when I tried to it wasn't there. I put it down to inactivity, but this makes me think otherwise...
I'm on a linux box now, and I wanted to test out the SSH client for KDE.
Shame.

[dukedave.com]

I'm in exactly the same position - nautilus (file browser in GNOME) and other apps have really nice ssh integration; use it all the time on local machines.

Kicks me everytime I have to copy local, edit and then upload with filthy FTP.

And then there's the whole rsync heaven we're missing out on.

[tomythius]

Tis muchly unfair.

[Brian]

Thats one thing that pissed me off, i used to be able to update my website hosting via another machine because i had SSH, all of a sudden this was stopped and i was told i had to send in a copy of my passport first ? I forgot about it for a while, and asked again and they said they where no longer offering SSH, but it says they do on the website hosting.

[targetdesign]

I would like SSH aswell, the power of unix is hidden from us

[Brian]

The convenience was great though, im a crap speller, and i usually wouldnt notice till somebody pointed it out to me and i was not near the PC

[eUKhost.com]

Your website hostings are hosted on webserver and security is the biggest concern on webservers. Shell access in wrong hands can bring down a server and there wont be anything as bad as loosing important data in such case.

I recommend using local system for fullfilling your requirement to work on linux machine. We are thinking of keeping a separate server for those who want shell access at any cost but we will keep some additional cost for such requirement as monitoring such servers is a big task.