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tilde:accounts

Table of Contents

A Tilde Account

A tilde account is a home directory on a shared unix machine: a shell login, a ~ directory, and a set of publishing and social tools that vary by host. This page describes what an account typically includes and where hosts differ. Terms are defined in Glossary.

What You Get

  • A shell login over SSH and a ~ home directory
  • A web space, usually ~/public_html/ served at host/~you/
  • Often gopher (~/public_gopher/) and gemini (~/public_gemini/) spaces alongside the web site
  • Local mail, IRC, finger files (.plan, .project), and tools written by other members

Where Hosts Differ

Aspect Typical Variants
web space ~/public_html/ sdf serves ~/html (a symlink outside home); cosmic.voyage serves ~/ships/<name>/ instead of ~user dirs
login shell bash csh on tilde.pink, ksh on sdf; chsh may or may not be offered
mail local spool read with mail/alpine/mutt tilde.club gives a real maildir with sieve and .forward; envs.net is server-side IMAP; cosmic mail only reaches other pubnixes
IRC client weechat or irssi some hosts run a local ircd (town chat connects to one); others point at irc.tilde.chat
persistence none byobu/tmux sessions keep IRC connected between logins; sessions die on server reboot
publishing extras guestbook (guestbook.txt) sdf supports CGI (guestbook.cgi); club ships the bashblog engine; town has ttbp, bink, and a launcher of community tools

Conventions Worth Knowing

  • ~ names are usernames: tilde.town/~name. The same person may have different logins on different hosts
  • EDITOR/VISUAL are usually pre-set (often to micro); rw.rs leaves them unset
  • ~/.hushlogin suppresses the login banner on most hosts; tilde.green uses its own ~/.config/tilde-green-hushed-login-mail
  • Credentials are stored on the host but outside any synced or published tree: .ssh/, mail configs, IRC configs. See Joining a Tilde for key hygiene
  • Some hosts are deliberately minimal: rw.rs ships no finger, byobu, or mutt

See Also

tilde/accounts.txt · Last modified: by 127.0.0.1