this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2024
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I had forgotten about SDF but seeing SDF instance on Lemmy caught my attention. I used to use SDF for a while about 10 years ago and now it would be interesting to see if I have left anything interesting there.

I found my notes from ten years ago so I know what my username was. I don't remember my password though. I tried to log in but to no avail. Is there any way to know whether my account still exists? Do accounts get removed if they're not used for long periods of time?

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Could my 10 year old SDF account still exist?

Mine does. I finally remembered to log back in and there she is...

Caveat: the hostname had changed; I signed up at lonestar.sdf.org IIRC (no longer extant) and now it is on freeshell.org

I found my notes from ten years ago so I know what my username was

Another caveat: I think usernames were truncated to 8 chars in that time period. Don't know if that's the case now or not, or if extra chars are thrown away anyhow.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (2 children)

I tried finger as the other commenter suggested. I tried bunch of variations. Whole username, 8 chars truncated, and a shorter version which was in my notes. I also tried both sdf.org and freeshell.org. All of them gave me an empty output. I guess the fact that it didn't output no such user means it must be either of them. Or all of them refer to the same user.

I also found an email sent from my sdf user. The address in format [email protected] had the whole username (more than 8 chars). Then there's the shortest version of the name in my notes. That's written as sdf.lonestar.org/1/users/username. No idea what that refers to. Seems I didn't take very good notes. So which of these would more probably be the correct one?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

For finger to work remotely, you have to have set up a .plan file as well as applied correct permissions to it at the time in your home directory.

I have a .plan file, I get that response from finger when I'm on SDF but it doesn't work when I do the lookup remotely. I don't recall the needed permissions.

$ finger chance

Login: chance         			Name: Chance Platt

Directory: /sdf/arpa/af/c/chance    	Shell: /usr/pkg/bin/bash

On since Sun Jun  9 09:56 2024 (UTC) on pts/19 from 99.162.15.208

Mail last read Sun Jun  9 09:48 2024 (UTC)

Plan: I'm friendly-like.

Now, since you know your username, there is a password reset mechanism:

Password Reset at SDF Wiki

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I tried recover but it says no such user. It very well might be that I didn't set up any password recovery ten years ago. So either there's no user with that login anymore or it reports no such user because it's not set up for recovery. Maybe I'll try make a new user with same username.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

You know what, I just checked, and account expiry is covered in the FAQ.

It might well be expired.

I second emailing membership, they might be able to help you. Or if you trust one of us, we might be able to check, as well.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago

This is not true. I do not have a ~/.plan file. I just double checked in case I set one up and forgot about it.

finger still pulls some basic information without one.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

If you are ssh-ing in, I think you want tty.sdf.org.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

You likely signed up when it was sdf.lonestar.org but I think SDF has had the sdf.org domain for 15+ years at this point, and the freeshell.org domain has been around for over twenty.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Don’t forget sdf-eu.org, if thats what you originally used.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

I actually tried to finger the same usernames on sdfeu.org and it reports no such user so I guess it's not there.