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#1
Applications / Re: Feltrush Laundry
Last post by Xepher - July 17, 2024, 11:00:52 PM
I'm sorry, but I'm not keen on hosting an ssh-based game, due to the security implications. I mean, it sounds like a cool project and all, but SSH here is tightly locked down, and accounts are tied directly to system accounts, with no provision for "anonymous" extra users or anything. There have been too many hacking attempts in years past for me to lower those restrictions.

What I would suggest you look at is the $5/month (shared-cpu) plan at Linode. Xepher.net itself is hosted there (on a larger, more expensive plan of course.) It'd let you basically get a real server of your own, and then you could do whatever you wanted with it, including hosting your SSH game and even your website.
#2
Applications / Feltrush Laundry
Last post by Deverell Manning - July 07, 2024, 04:17:29 PM
Deverell Manning Xepher.net Site Request

Username: deverell-manning

Email: deverellmanning321 at gmail dot com


My Website, hosted on Github Pages.

You can also look at my Github.



Site Description:

Site Name:  Feltrush Laundry

This site is my place to present the things I make.
I don't have much to on it right now, but I've been working on a system that lets me create and manage pages easier.  This means it kind of looks like a blog, but it's not a blog content-wise.  The idea is that when I finish a project, I can quickly write and post a new page about it, with out having to worry much about site management.

What kind of stuff would I have?

I enjoy drawing.  I draw digitally and on paper.  I hope to improve, so I put my art in my gallery.  I'm also interested in creative writing.  I've been working on stuff for the Liminal Archives wiki.  Anything I post there I will also have here.  I've made Java Sketches with Processing, and and JavaScript sketches with P5.js.  Some of which made it onto my site, and soon more will come.

My other reason for this site:

I have a project I'm doing that would benefit greatly from having a server.  The House Project / Eligotextum World is a filesystem-based interactive fiction game I'm writing in bash.  You can look at the source on Github, but I didn't include the world files in the repo.  I've had multiple people playing at the same time over an SSH connection to my computer.  I can't serve it at home because of a limited internet connection.  If I had a server, I could have more people testing it and get more feedback.

I'd be pleased if I could set up the House Project server on xepher.net.  It's easier said than done.  There are some security concerns, and I'd need another account for players to log in to over SSH.  I'm confident that I could solve the different problems that will arise if I have the chance.

Feel free to ask me any questions!
#3
Announcements / Email Changes Coming Soon
Last post by Xepher - June 11, 2024, 01:46:07 AM
So xepher.net is running a bit like the Voyager probes. Long past their expected lifetime, and so we have to narrow mission scope to keep things going. In the past few years, the bulk of my pain-points with continuing things has been around email. More specifically, with various other services blacklisting xepher.net as a "spam source." Mostly I think this is the fault of having such low volume email: One spam message in a month makes this server's message output 5%+ spam (because we send so few messages.) So I think we're getting trapped by heuristics that don't really apply. But also, that's the reality and I can't get google/yahoo/msn/etc. to change their behavior.

That said, I want to work on fixing the issue in the long run. To that end, I want to know who is actually USING email services here. This question comes in several parts:

1) Are you using xepher.net email directly (e.g. user@xepher.net)
2) Are you using a virtual domain (user@mywebsite.com, which is hosted by xepher.net)
3) Are you SENDING email from either of the two above?
3a) If so, which ones? Both?
4) Are you sending email here some other way? (Possibly a violation/problem, possibly not.)

What I'm considering is spooling up an independent mailserver VM for xepher.net, such that you'll need to log into it directly (for both sending and receiving) but that will negate the worry that infected wordpress installs and similar are somehow sending spam from the only "official" server and getting us blacklisted. Also, with a separate server, all transactions will be fully logged (not content, just sender+datetime) so that if/when spam is detected, it can be shut down quickly and connected with the compromised account.

Please let me know if you're in the emailing using category, but also if you have any other thoughts or concerns around this. Thanks!
#4
Announcements / Upgraded System
Last post by Xepher - March 30, 2024, 06:57:57 AM
Upgrade time again. Nothing specific, but prompted by a major security breach in a core package (XZ) used by almost every Linux (and BSD) distro on earth today. It doesn't look like any direct exploit or vulnerability happened here on xepher.net, but it made me want to update and verify things generally.

We're still on PHP 8.1 but 8.2 may be coming sooner rather than later. Don't expect any issues there, but, one never expects the Spanish Inquisition. That said, and for now, this round of updates should be "done." If you have any remaining issues or problems, please let me know. And I apologize for the interruptions the past 10 hours or so.
#5
Announcements / Re: Upgrading to PHP 8.1 and M...
Last post by Xepher - September 02, 2023, 04:00:55 AM
Okay, upgrade is complete... I think. Let met know if you have problems. But please try upgrading any php based software first!
#6
Announcements / Upgrading to PHP 8.1 and Maria...
Last post by Xepher - July 17, 2023, 01:36:55 AM
PHP 7.4 is end-of-life, and so mysql 5.7. The real impetus for this change though is that openssl 1.1 itself (which both of these depend on) is going EOL in September as well. Most people hopefully won't be affected in any serious ways, but if you have PHP scripts on your site (such as wordpress) you should make sure you're up to date with the latest version.

I will likely perform this upgrade sometime next week, but depending on how busy I am, may postpone it slightly longer. I aim to have it done by the end of July in any case, so please check your site software for upgrades soon.

EDIT: Upgrade complete. Please upgrade your software if you have issues, and reach out to me if you can't resolve things.
#7
General Chat / What do you plan to do for Chr...
Last post by MeditativeMoney - December 24, 2022, 11:11:36 PM
Myself, I don't have any family or friends, but you never know, that might change.
#8
General Chat / Do you believe in reincarnatio...
Last post by MeditativeMoney - December 22, 2022, 06:53:47 AM
Why or why not?
#9
Technical Support / Re: Weird Message
Last post by Xepher - August 30, 2022, 07:45:57 PM
So... yeah. First off, sorry about that. But over the past few days, the traffic to your site shot through the roof starting about 6 days ago. Unfortunately I was out of town for the last 5 and didn't get to look into it until last night, and was planning to take a longer look at it after work today. Long story short, I think your wordpress install was under heavy attack. There were hundreds of gigabytes of traffic going to a few dozen eastern european and russian IPs, and all of those were continually sending dozens of comments and login attempts every minute. Over a full terabyte of traffic already went to your site before I locked it down. I hope by turning it off for a day or so, it'll kick it out of the botnet's list of targets and maybe the problem will be resolved.

I'm emailing you for further discussion.
#10
Technical Support / Weird Message
Last post by danieljswan - August 30, 2022, 06:55:39 PM
Hi Xepher:

When I tried to access my site earlier I was greeted with a weird message that read:
For security, this account has been disabled. If this is your site, please contact the xepher.net administrator to have your account unlocked.

find enclosed a screenshot I took and any help to get this resolved would be great

thanks

Daniel Swan
Through Daniel's Lens

(http://throughdanielslens.xepher.net/)