Ask HN: unix home in the cloud?

Posted by strayer on Friday December 03, 2010 @05:14AM
from the ask-hn dept.

Finishing a contract for an academic project soon, I'll miss having a unix machine I can log in from anywhere, which has all my scripts and data in it, where I can run stuff for myself.

Amazon EC2, slicehost, are marketed as hosting sites. I guess many of you use them as home machines too. Any thoughts?

( 9 comments | 5 points | on HN )

Re:Ask HN: unix home in the cloud? by ddrager on Friday December 03, 2010 @05:57AM (#1965400)

All of those are clouds, not really meant as an always-on home in the cloud (or at least an expensive option). I'll assume you are looking for low-budget since you mentioned "Academic project."

What you are looking for is probably a VPS (can be had for < $10/month at many, many places) or simply setting up an old computer on your home connection. Even if you have a static IP, use DynDNS or similar service to get a static address to connect to.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: unix home in the cloud? by strayer on Friday December 03, 2010 @07:02AM (#1965517)

Yes, something like the idea of a Virtual Private Server is what I was looking for, thanks.

I wonder what's people's experience for single-user, private daily use.

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Re:Ask HN: unix home in the cloud? by retroafroman on Friday December 03, 2010 @09:36AM (#1965918)

I have a Linux VPS I use everyday, mostly just privately. It's very handy as a way to get around the corporate network blocked sites, and I can use it if I feel the Wifi network I'm on is sketchy to try and encrypt my traffic. Mine is only 3 bucks a month and that's easily worth it to me. Lowendbox.com has good deals pop up all the time. It's no speed demon, but it works for all I do with it.

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Re:Ask HN: unix home in the cloud? by bobf on Friday December 03, 2010 @03:27PM (#1967330)

Lowendbox.com is a great way to get cheap VPS service, and anything <$10/mo is hard to complain too harshly about.. but my caveat to using companies from there is to make sure you have decent backups, handle email/DNS somewhere other than your VPS, and try not to care too much about 100% uptime :)

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Re:Ask HN: unix home in the cloud? by rubinelli on Friday December 03, 2010 @04:43PM (#1967547)

I just use Google Apps for Domains for email. For domains, GoDaddy is decent, but I prefer Namecheap.

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Re:Ask HN: unix home in the cloud? by inetsee on Friday December 03, 2010 @08:31AM (#1965702)

If you can get by with something really lightweight, Amazon has their new EC2 micro instance. It's free for the first year (for new AWS customers), then an on-demand instance runs 2 cents an hour. You can't beat those prices with a stick.

More details about what's included can be found here: "http://aws.amazon.com/free/

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Re:Ask HN: unix home in the cloud? by strayer on Friday December 03, 2010 @08:51AM (#1965753)

I am considering that, but shutting down during off hours so as not to run into a bill of >$200 a year (I'm not a new customer).

I am curious about people's experiences with using them for that purpose.

I found using EC2's non-micro instances somehow inconvenient because boot times seemed to be too long for casual use, plus I had to pay extra for a permanent IP. Maybe I'm too lazy, or perhaps the micro instances are more suitable for that purpose?

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Re:Ask HN: unix home in the cloud? by JoachimSchipper on Friday December 03, 2010 @05:39AM (#1965373)

Google "shell account"? Or buy a cheap, simple computer (think SheevaPlug) and keep it on at home? Carry a netbook? The possibilities are endless...

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Re:Ask HN: unix home in the cloud? by hasenj on Friday December 03, 2010 @11:57AM (#1966553)

Did you consider "Ubuntu One" synchronization of all your scripts and dotfiles?

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