Cenote terms of use and information

  • Updated January 23rd 2017 for service upgrade details
  • Updated April 27th 2014 for removal of Usenet services and spelling

This is a guide, and is not a legal document, but it explains the terms of the covenant between user and admin for this service.)

Technical Information

Cenote is a virtual server hosted - using KVM - on a machine containing a couple dozen virtual servers in London, England by Linode.

It runs Debian, Stable branch (Currently codenamed Jessie).

The sysadmin for the system is Nicholas Avenell, with the login Aquarion. Charles Cooke - login ccooke - also has root access in an emergency. They can both be reached via their login name @gkhs.net. Email for that host is not handled by cenote.

Contact

Aquarion can be reached on zero seven nine oh nine, 547 990. or - preferably - at nicholas@aquarionics.com (This goes though gmail, so can be used to contact me in the case of server being down, though I probably know)

Services

  • Cenote users can have web hosting as something.aqxs.net. Contact me if you would like this.
  • If you own a domain, I will host it for you until it starts doing nasty things to my bandwidth (ie, costing me money) and then I will ask you to move it or come to another arrangement. I will help you do either.
  • I will do mail redirection for domains.
  • Cenote runs ssh, screen, irssi and lots of other things.
  • I will, at request, assign you a mysql database.
  • You can access cenote with sftp & ssh.
  • Any other standard linux packages that are not installed are possible, please email me for details.

Lack of services.

  • Cenote is backed up in that /etc and /home/aquarion go to my local machine. I would recommend you back up your data.
  • Daily backups are taken of databases and website directories and kept for a week.
  • Linode do a daily backup that I can restore the entire system from in the case of a complete failure.
  • Cenote doesn’t even host my mail (it gets forwarded to google apps), it’s not a good mail host. (Actually, it’s a perfectly fine mail host, but I am unwilling to take responsibility for other people’s mail access, see “Reliability Guarantee” below).

Data Privacy

Because Cenote is on a virtual server, the data held on it is not completely private. Users with root access - aquarion & ccooke - can view any data on the server (but, unless requested to, will not do so for anything inside anyone else’s home directory). People with root access to the Xen server that cenote is running on also have access to any data on cenote. I do not believe they will access this information.

Linode is a US company, and is thus subject to abuses of the DMCA. I - aquarion - will be notified if action is taken on it, but will probably not get the opportunity to object. (Their terms of service and privacy policy are here, FYI)

May Nots

  • Don’t bittorrent from cenote.
  • Don’t spam anyone
  • If installing any web applications, please email aquarion with what they are.
  • Do not, under any circumstances, install phpbb, ajaxterm, anyterm, mindterm or any remote access software on cenote.

Reliability Guarantee

There isn’t one, really.

Accounts on cenote are given only to people I know, and for free. I do not take direct payment for cenote services at this point, because I am not prepared to be responsible for your data or connection. I am not reliable. I will help you as best I can, but I have a full time job and part time insanity to cope with, and cenote is primarily a place where I can put things and secondarily a way I can help out people I like.

If I thought I could make a living out of running cenote-like services, I’d do that. This is a free service, and is worth what you pay for it.

If this bothers you, if you feel that you need a higher level of technical support and amount of time than I am able to supply, then I would suggest you go for a system that you pay for. I do not have the mental energy to be that person, sorry.

— Nicholas ‘Aquarion’ Avenell

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