This is what's known as a Tilde community server or a Pubnix server (public linux). It is a community led effort to provide a web server to YOU, it's users!
At the repl-alliance we want tou to have a space on the internet that is free from advertisemnts, influencers, data farming and slow websites.
When you sign up dor an account, you get a little space to call your own!
If you are reading this, you are in the machine already! You may or may not have used the command line to navigate a computer before. It's how things were done for a large part of computer history and even though now we use GUIs (windows we click in, to navigate through file folders), we can do all the same stuff via the terminal and sometimes it's even quicker! This way.
Consider this little window your home when you are on our server. You won't ever have to leave it! You can upload files, edit your website, message other users of R-A, and explore, all with just a few text commands that will become your new navigation tools!
When you log into the server, you will find yourself in your home directory. You will see the following when the computer is waiting for your instructions:
cd is a little different from ls because you have to specify a location to change to. So if i have no clue where i am, i use ls. On repl-alliance.com every user starts out with two things in their home directory:
Knowing our new command this is how using it would look:
username@repl-alliance.com:~$cd public_html
Once a command has been typed, hit enter and now you'll notice a change on your command line:
username@repl-alliance.com:~/public_html$
Now you can see that you are in that public_html directory! Go ahead and use ls to see what files are here.
The cat command is used to read file content not edit them though
cat [filename]
To edit files like your .html file, you'll need to use a text editor. You have probably used a text editor before like Word, for the terminal, there are several options including vim and emac. These editors are powerful and have a ton of features, but they have a steep learning curve. We will be using nano a basic text editor that is pretty straightforward for what we want to do as newcomers to the world of text based computer interaction.
Running the nano command followed by the filename will open the file specified in the nano text editor. If you want to make a new file you do the same command and just put what you want the file to be named in place of an existing filename and poof! You'll have a blank slate to start writing your next novel, website or make ascii art!
More nano commandds
Listed along the bottom of your text editor are options for common functions. When you see the '^' character it represents the Ctrl key on your keyboard.
- Ctrl + O : this is the save command. It saves, but does not close the file. When you use this command at dirst it may aeem like nothing happened- we're used to little windows popping up to tell us when things go right or wrong. With nano, you'll find communication along the bottom of the screen. Hit the save command and along the bottom of the window it'll show the name if the file you are editing. Press Y to confirm the file name and save is complete. If you are done editing move to the exit command.
- Ctrl + X : Once you are done editing your file use this command to exit nano and rrturn yo yhe command prompt.
To check if you have mail just use the finger command with your own username:
finger [username]
This lists whether you have mail, and lists details that you have set about yourself including 'plans' and 'projects' you are working on. It's basically the original mini-blog/status update and you can finger any user.
Your mail can be found under your username in the directory
/var/mail
To get to this directory use the cd command.
To read your mail simply open your username with the command:
cat [username]
We are using mutt as our mail system in server. It is a very basic mail system and a way to communicate with other repl rebls.
To send a user a message, use the mutt command followed by the user who you are sending it to:
mutt [recievers username]
You can use any irc chat software to connect to live chat on our server with other users. A few options for this are
Our IRC server can be found at repl-alliance.com/6697
Because this is a shared environment, we can share files or you can edit files on your local computer and upload them to the server for whatever (non-nefarious) purposes.
The shared space also lends a degree of trust in each other as users. Therefore, admins will remove content that is seen as in opposition with the server values. We won't host illegal content or content that we see as harmful to users or people in general.
If we do find content that goes against our code of ethics, the content will be removed and the user will be given a warning. If the user again uploads similar content, we will delete the user and it's diles from the system and lovingly extend a permanent ban.
Our admins have the say on what constitutes non-nefarious uploads