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Ask HN: unix home in the cloud?

5 points by strayer ↗ HN
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

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

strayer
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.

retroafroman
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.
bobf
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 :)
rubinelli
I just use Google Apps for Domains for email. For domains, GoDaddy is decent, but I prefer Namecheap.
inetsee
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/

strayer
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?

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