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Info/Signup

Signup

Requirements

  • You have to be active in the chat, both during the signup process and after you get your account. You will probably never get an account unless you join the chat and talk to us. Participating in the community is very important!

  • You will need a valid email address.
  • You will also need some way of ensuring us of that you are a real person, not just an alias you use for hacking sites on the internet. This usually means you will either have to send/receive an SMS or making a small (0.01$) PayPal ("verified" account) transfer.

The procedure

To get an account at Blinkenshell, you must complete the five steps in our signup program. You do this by logging in to the server with a special account and running the signup program.

Start by joining our chat. We use the chat protocol IRC, if you've never used it before take a look here: Info/IRC (or use the webchat). If you're used to IRC, just join this network/channel: #blinkenshell @ irc.allshells.net

You also need to register your nickname with the NickServ bot. Type "/msg nickserv help register" to get help on registering your nickname or take a look at: Howto/Register_Nickname.

Next, you should log in to the server via SSH. Connect to blinkenshell.org on port 2222, and log in with username/password: signup/signup23. More info: Info/Login

After you have logged in, you need to create a "signup user account" to handle your signup process. (Remember that you can not directly log in via SSH using this account. Explanation of different accounts at Blinkenshell)

When you have your signup user account and are logged in, you can begin with the five steps of the signup program:

  1. A quiz with ~20 questions to verify that you are familiar with the rules and other necessary information on Blinkenshell. Be sure to read all the relevant info on this website (About, Rules, IRC, Webhosting, Start) before starting! You can find manual pages for common Linux commands here: http://man.he.net/

  2. Verify your email address.
  3. Verify your NickServ acccount.

  4. Get two registered users to vouch (approve) for you. Just join the chat (if you haven't already) and start talking to us, get to know some people! :) Note, however, that it is considered bad taste to start chasing everyone in the channel around for vouches. Several people come every day hunting for vouches - if we are to be responsible vouchers, we can't approve you all at once. If you give us something to remember you by, and it isn't just "annoying", you'll probably not have a problem getting vouches. This step should take a day or two.

  5. IRL Verification. Here you can either enter your phone number and recieve an SMS with a verification code that you enter, or donate a small amount (like 0.01$) via PayPal from a verified account.

When you're done with all that, an admin will review your application and manually create an account if everything looks alright. Good luck!

You can see what step you are currently at in the signup program at this page: http://signup.blinkenshell.org/ or by issuing the command !signup <username> in the chat.

Feel free to ask us in the chat if you have any questions about anything!

I expect you to log in to the IRC-channel once in a while, even after you get your account. Please add #blinkenshell to your autojoin channels in your IRC client, autoidentify with nickserv is probably a good idea too.

Misc info/FAQ

In the signup program, you create an account for the signup process. You will not be able to log in to the system (SSH) with this account. This account is only valid in the signup program, and you have to start the signup program by logging in with the user signup. So, first log in with the signup user and then, when you are in, you can use the signup account.

If you fail the quiz the first time, you can try again. There is no limit on how many times you can take the quiz, but you have to wait five minutes before you can try again. Do not try and guess answers, you will have to understand the questions and answers. Also, you have to get every single question right to pass.

Step 4 may seem scary to some. If your English is weak, remember that many of us aren't native English speakers either - try us, and you'll find out that we're quite understanding. If you don't know what to say when entering a quiet IRC channel, try telling us what you do, who you are, why you want the shell, or something like that. We don't want an essay, but say something. If you want to, you can create a user on this wiki and write a small presentation of yourself on your userpage and show that to people.

Remember to be active in the chat!