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December 27, 2004
So your Web Host doesn't offer Telnet access... Here's a solution.
I have been hosting chuckcaplan.com with iPowerWeb for almost 2 years. While I would not call them a phenomenal host, in general they are fine. And $8 a month for 2 gigs of space is not bad. If you are interested in using iPowerWeb, let me know so I can refer you.
One of the biggest issues I have had with iPowerWeb is that they do not offer shell access, meaning I cannot Telnet to the host in order to run standard Unix commands that would make maintaining my site easier, such as find, grep, mv, cp, rm, etc.
Fortunately, I came across CGI-Telnet by Rohitab Batra.
CGI-Telnet is a CGI script that allows you to execute commands on your web server. It is a useful tool if you don't have telnet access to your server.
I can now do almost any command via the CGI script that I could do with a Telnet client. The downside is that since it is a web client and not a real Telnet client, only simple request and response commands can be used, such as typical Unix commands. Any commands that require multiple lines of input, such as mysql and vi cannot be used. In addition, be aware that this script can do serious damage to your site if you do not know what you are doing. If you are unfamiliar with a specific command, research it before using it.
Still, I have found this script very useful in maintaining my site and would recommend it to anyone who needs Telnet access but whose site does not support it.
Posted by Chuck at December 27, 2004 10:45 AM
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