[PLUG] ISP shell access still in demand?

[Geoff Burling]

On Wed, 12 Mar 2003, Eric Brockman wrote:

> I'm a System Admin for an ISP here in the Portland Area, small but
> locally owned.  In my humble opinion that lends itself to have it's fair
> share of pros and cons.  Over that past nine years we've been in
> business we for a very brief amount of time offered shell access.  While
> I wouldn't mind opening our system back up to our customers to provide
> shell access, my question is, is there really a desire for it anymore or
> am I just such a geek with the command line that I'm out of touch? :)

(Returning to the original question.)

My opinion about your question is a qualified yes. Yes, in that there is
a small, but determined & usually clueful, group who want shell access.
At times, it is valuable to have an account on another host to troubleshoot
network problems, fiddle with procmail configurations, temporarily
store files, & lots of other occasional chores that make shell access
invaluable.

However, the vast majority of users could care less about this feature,
although a few might insist on having shell access vehemently, while
never using it & probably not know if their home account was set to
/dev/null & their shell to /bin/echo.

My advice is to offer it as an ``unadvertised special." There's a few
of us who will need it, & will ask for it -- & be grateful that you
offer it. The rest of your customers won't care.

Geoff