Re: [[cobalt-users] Server Hacked?]

[Kris Dahl <kris@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>> You obviously open yourself up if you allow telnet, but to be competitive
>> and offer good well rounded service you have to offer telnet.
> 
> That must be true <smile>, after all, the two largest ISPs in the world
> both offer telnet (AOL and Earthlink) ---NOT---.
> 
> You don't have to offer telnet to be competitive or to offer a good
> well-rounded service.  You may need to offer it because of YOUR business
> model.  I don't.

AOL and Earthlink are two of the world's largest ISPs.  They aren't two of
the world's largest e-commerce hosting companies.  I think that not having
shell access is a huge part of that.

If you are trying to offer advanced web hosting or e-commerce services in a
shared/remote environment you do need to have shell access.  Ever tried to
set up an advanced web site from remote on an NT server?  Possible, but not
easy.  You couldn't offer 'professional grade' hosting services without
shell access.  Front page extensions and the like are really for small
(typically amateur), low-complexity web sites--and for companies who don't
have a web development staff.

>> That being
>> said...we have hundreds of domains and only offer telnet to 3 of them.  On
>> the colocated servers here that we build for folks (non raq servers) we
>> disable telnet and fire up ssh for them and point them in the general
>> direction of an ssh client.
> 
> So I guess those hundreds of customers don't have a competitive,
> well-rounded service?  Somehow I don't think so; you seem pretty successful
> to me.

Well I'll bet that he has got 3 customers that are really trying to do
something with their website, and the others are pretty much setting your
basic run-of-the-mill 'web presence'.  And that is okay--there are a lot
more companies that want that sort of service than a really full-out
e-commerce solution.  Well, all the companies WANT a full-out e-commerce
solution, its just that most of them aren't willing (or don't feel its
prudent) to invest in it and spend the money to make it happen.  So you're
right--it all comes down to the business model.

Quantity (low-maintainance) vs. quality (more money) argument.

-k