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A shell account is a personal account that gives a user access to a Unix shell on a remote server, usually accessed through SSH (and historically telnet).
A shell account can be used for many different purposes because many different programs can be run on the shell. It might be used to try out another operating system, running IRC clients or bots, compile and run source code and scripts, to host websites, or to use e-mail services. It might be possible to run programs on the server even while not connected, using background jobs or programs such as the GNU screen terminal multiplexer.
Shell accounts are often subject to policies that limit different kind of resources, like disk usage (Disk quota) or processes. Some providers removed accounts that have not logged in for a long period of time. Some do not allow background processes or connections to IRC.
Shell providers
This is a list of notable shell providers.
- Arbornet - FreeBSD - Started in 1984, Sold in 1990 and then again in 1991.
- Grex - OpenBSD (formerly SunOS) - Founded in 1991
- Super Dimension Fortress (SDF) - NetBSD (formerly SVR3 on the 3B2) - Founded in 1987