Prospective Users
From ClueWiki
If you are a user that wants an account or is considering joining Cluenet, this is where you should start.
Contents |
General Information
Cluenet is an organization of many servers that provide different services including, but not limited to, ClueMail and ClueShells. See Comparison_of_Servers for a list of servers. A single Cluenet account can be used to access all Cluenet services for which it has privileges.
What to Read
Here's a list of things you should read, in order, before trying to get a Cluenet account. First, because a lot of stuff depends on IRC, read the IRC stuff.
- Clueful Chatting
- IRC Rules
- Cluenet Terms of Service
- ClueIRC
- Signing Up
- ClueNet:Comparison of Servers
- Tips for Using Your Cluenet Account
- One more thing
Technical details
Cluenet accounts are centrally maintained so user information is synchronized. All user information is stored in an LDAP database which can be accessed by users. Users can also use Kerberos for authentication, and all Cluenet servers should support both Kerberos and LDAP authentication.
Cluenet accounts may have different permissions based on the host, authorizedService, and clueAuthorizedAbility LDAP attributes. The combination of values of these LDAP attributes define the permissions that a user has and the services that the user can access. Most Cluenet servers do not filter access based on the host attribute - only the critical, limited-access servers filter based on a user's host attributes. By default, a user has no host attributes, and is not allowed access to the restricted servers. The authorizedService attribute defines which services the user has access to. A user account, right after it is created, has access to the wiki, forum, and other web services, but not to SSH on the servers. The SSH authorizedService is granted based on an additional signup procedure. The clueAuthorizedAbility attribute is a custom attribute specifying fine-tuned access control to Cluenet software.
Basic user accounts are easy to obtain, all that is required is validating an email address and asking an existing user to approve the account, which should be done immediately. The procedure for obtaining shell access is slightly more complicated - you can read about it on the Signing Up page.
More information can be found on the Cluenet Infrastructure and LDAP and LDIFs pages.
FAQ
Why ClueShells?
ClueShells is different from many other shell providers in that the resources are spread out across many different servers, and as such, provides more resources overall. If an individual server doesn't allow something, there's a good chance that another server will. Also, because of the variety of software and hardware, you're likely to find whichever resources or tools you need. Because, with SSH access, you automatically get an account on all servers, a variety of interesting things are possible, such as using DistCC to speed up compiles. We even allow this from your home machines.
How Is This Free?
Cluenet services are free because it is an organization of many different administrators and machines all run in different places. If the individual locations can be free, then so can the network.
What Is Required?
Cluenet is focused around the community, so we do ask that you participate actively in the community. If you're a clueful user, you will like it there. Community participation is required for a shell account.
How Do I Get An Account?
See the Signing Up section.
