User:Vivek.m1234/Grex

Grex is a public access Unix system, reachable as grex.org. Its run by Cyberspace Communications, Inc, a nonprofit, charitable (501(c)(3)), corporation. Its server is physically located in Ypsilanti, Michigan, USA, and is community owned and operated. It is one of the oldest, completely free, shell provider in existence today.

Grex
Grex came on line on June 26, 1991 and opened to the public on July 18. It ran on a Sun 2 computer, had four public dial-in lines, and was housed rent-free in a warehouse. A non-profit corporation called Cyberspace Communications, with an assumed business name of Grex, was formed to run it. Grex has always been firmly dedicated to open access. To ensure democratic operation of the system, they have compiled a set of bylaws allowing any member to call for a binding referendum on any issue. Grex thrived in the academic environment and culture that proximity to the University of Michigan provided and its early development was influenced by this.

Days in the "Dungeon"
The "Dungeon" was located in the basement of a 150 year old house on the west side of Ann Arbor, in a very small space about 7 x 13 feet. Its raison d'être was to house Grex's collection of computers, modems, telephone interfaces, and other electronic equipment. The lights to the Dungeon were switched off and the Dungeon was left unattended because the equipment ran by itself, requiring no staff intervention. Once in a while, if staff needed to work on the equipment (maintenance), and if it couldn't be done remotely by dialing in through the telephone, they'd physically enter the cramped Dungeon - the chairs were provided for seating, on such an occasion.

In the image to the right, the left-front section corresponds to the Grex server in a large SUN VME case with a SCSI shoe-box case sitting on top - the books underneath are for air-flow around the SCSI case. Behind that, on the desk are three consoles, the closest one is a 386-PC with a small monochrome monitor on top - that is the "Gryps" router. Behind it are two "Ambassador" terminals, both of which are connected directly into Grex, and act as consoles. On the left wall there are shelves containing more equipment; the bright rectangle is the modem that is attached to the Internet-link. A plywood board mounted on the far wall contains the incoming telephone connections.

thumb|left|Consoles and modems The image to the left consists of a close up view of the Gryps router console and the two "Ambassdor terminals. On the lower shelf, at the extreme left end is a Hayes modem which is connected to Gryps and is used to maintain the connection to the internet provider, Innovative Concepts. On the same shelf are the 11 modems used by the dialup pool; there are 6 GVC V.32bis modems on the left and 5 Supra V.22 (2400 baud) modems on the right. On the top shelf is the ALM-II board which is the serial interface to Grex for all of the incoming modem lines. It is connected directly to Grex, and has a modem cable connected to each modem in the hunt group.

thumb|right|Grex server In the image to the right, mounted on a black plastic crate to the extreme left, is the power conditioner, which provides for glitch-free power to much of the equipment in the Dungeon. The Grex server is the massive case to the right, with a shoe-box enclosure on top of the books that contains the SCSI disks and tapes.

The Pumpkin, circa 1996
Grex's computers were housed in small, windowless, room, in an old industrial building in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The rent was $60 a month (exclusive of electricity), and the room was called "The Pumpkin" because its walls were a pumpkin orange-pink, and there were pumpkin leaves and flowers, and the occasional butterfly, painted on it.

In the image to the left, there are three monitors on a desk. The left-most one is the old, Ann Arbor, Ambassador terminal, which was Grex's console for many years, but it's broken now and is no longer being used. The computer in the middle, with the amber screen, is Grex's console: it's an original IBM PC with a 20 megabyte "hardcard" for a disk drive. A note stuck to the monitor, advises people to be patient when rebooting it, because its really, really slow. The only thing run on it was the Kermit terminal emulator - so for our purposes, it is just a terminal with scroll-back. The computer on the right, with the green monitor, is a 386 running FreeBSD Unix. This machine is Gryps, and serves as the router. It routes packets that come in over our Internet-connection onto our local Ethernet, so all Internet traffic to or from Grex passes through this machine. If the net connection fails, it automatically re-establishes the connection. The small white box dangling off the shelf above it is Gryps' modem, through which it establishes a PPP connection to the ISP, IC-Net. It has an Ethernet card that lets it pass packets on to Grex. On the shelf above the console and Gryps is a row of modems balanced precariously on their sides, which serve our local dial-in users. They are GVC 14.4 error correcting modems, but they are programmed to connect only at 2400 or 9600 baud, because Grex's serial interfaces can't handle faster rates.

The image to the left is a picture of Grex. This is the rear of the chassis, with the power supply on the bottom and twelve card-slots on top. The front faces the wall because the important stuff is to the rear. Only four of the twelve VME card slots are being used in this picture. The chassis was made by Computer Vision, a company that sells Sun-compatible hardware. Slot two has a Sun 4/200 CPU card (the 12 slot chassis make the computer a 4/260). The cables plugged into it are for the console, ttyb, and the Ethernet. Slot four is a 32 megabyte memory card. Slot eight is the SCSI controller. The cable from it runs up to external disk enclosures standing on top of Grex. Slot ten is the ALM serial card. Its two cables run up to a box sitting on one of the shelves that has 16 RS-232 connectors on it. All the modems plug into those.

This picture to the right shows Grex's disk drives, standing on the end of the desk next to Gryps, on top of the Grex chassis. Each enclosure has room for two full-height SCSI disk drives. The disk drives should be inside the external enclosures instead of being balanced precariously on top, but some of the fans in the disk enclosures malfunctioned, so a staffer has rigged up cooling for the disks and a sign on the fan says "touch and die!". The left-hand enclosure contains the drive with Grex's root partition inside, and, balanced on top of it, is the 2 gigabyte drive on which all user home directories are stored. The right-hand enclosure contains a (rarely used) back-up tape drive on the bottom, and, balanced on top of that, a 300 megabyte CDC Wren drive that serves as Grex's swap disk. On the shelf above the disk drives, just to the right of the link modem, is the break-out box for the ALM card. All those cables plugged into it go to the dial-in modems.

This is a chunk of plywood that is nailed to the wall, above a small trap-door that leads to a crawl-space under a stairwell adjoining Grex's office. Coming through a small hole in the lower right-hand corner is the end of a 50-conductor cable that is strung down into the building's, basement, phone-closet. It ties-in in to the yellow punch-down block on the right side, which connects to an assortment of phone jacks, which the modems connect to. There is a voice phone hanging from the wall.

Pumpkin 2001


This is the Grex computer as of 2001. It stands on the floor to the right of the desk, with a white UPS wedged in between it and the desk, and a four-bay SCSI chassis standing on top of it. The big box you see is a 12-slot VME chassis. It was bought at a University of Michigan property disposition. The Sun 4/370 inside it, was removed and the chassis, with slots for 12 VME boards, a quality power supply on the right side (the thing with the silver handle), drawers for four SCSI disks in the top section, and an array of 9 fans in the bottom, was used. It's standing with it's face to the wall, because the interesting stuff is at the rear.

VME boards are about the size of a placemat. Though this case can hold twelve of them, we are only using two, though being double-slot cards, each occupies two slots. Slot two (and three), contains a 4/6xx motherboard. This has a built-in SCSI controller, an ethernet interface and a serial port for the console. Plugged into it are two SM100 modules, each containing two 40MHz Ross CPUs, so the system has a total of four 40 MHz SPARC processors. Also plugged into the motherboard are 32 4-Meg SIMMs, giving 128 megabytes of memory on the main board. It has slots for several SBus modules, but none are being used because a second SCSI chain has to be added, which will require adding an SBus SCSI controller module. The second card, in slot four, is a memory expansion card, containing 64 more 4-Meg SIMMs, bringing the total system memory up to 384 megabytes. This particular set of components in this particular type of chassis makes this a rather well-equipped Sun SparcServer 4/670. It was the last VME system Sun built and back in 1991 these were sold as enterprise servers for a lot of money (likely around $50,000 for the system without the memory. The memory would have cost around $150,000 in those days). The blue cable plugged into the back of the motherboard connects Grex to the ethernet hub. The white cable just above it loops around to the four-bay SCSI enclosure on top of the VME chassis. Another SCSI cable loops back down and plugs into the top part of the VME chassis, where there are more drive bays. There are two hard disk drives hidden inside the top of the VME chassis, and three more in the NPI SCSI enclosure (one with colorful guts hanging out). Each of these three drives is 2.1 gigs, for 10.5 gigs of total disk space. Also in the external SCSI enclosure is a 8mm Exabyte "Mammoth" tape drive. This can store 20GB on a tape and is used to make backups of the system whenever we think of it, which isn't very often.

Provide Net
Currently Grex is at provide.net

Services
The system currently runs on an OpenBSD 4.4 server and offers complete, unprivileged, and free Unix shell access to all its users.

Lots of Unix programs and utilities, including a BBS (Backtalk), chat program (party), email programs (Pine, Mutt), and developer tools (GCC, Perl, Python, PHP, Ruby, Expect, MySQL, GDB, Strace) have been made available at no cost to the lay user. Users can also host their personal-website (eg: http://johndoe.cyberspace.org), and are permitted to run CGI scripts.

Outbound access from Grex, for non-members, is severely restricted and IRC bots and bouncers do not work because of patches implemented at the kernel level; mailing lists and file storage are also not provided.

As a member (who has made a donation and sent ID), you can: vote in Grex elections, serve on the board of Cyberspace Communications, access outbound SSH, FTP, and IRC sites from Grex. You can also access web sites running on unusual ports, from Grex using (lynx or links).

The simplest way to access Grex and its myriad services is to create a new account, by connecting to cyberspace.org via telnet or ssh and typing newuser at the login prompt. However, due to constant abuse by script kiddies, a newuser has to 'validate' his account after logging in. This is done by typing help at the restricted shell and following the instructions provided. Validation costs you nothing, and gives you complete access to all services. If you wish to read the conferences anonymously you can use this link.

Software
Grex runs some unique and antiquated software that was cutting edge at a time when computer conferencing systems were not widely available.


 * Newuser: Grex runs two versions of the Newuser program, used to create a new user-account. The web based Newuser program can be accessed here and the telnet version can be accessed [telnet://cyberspace.org/ here] - Newuser, also runs over SSH and is the safest way to connect since SSH provides an encrypted channel for authentication.
 * PicoSpan: a computer conferencing software.
 * Backtalk v0.9.0, was first released on Oct 6 1997 . Backtalk is a Picospan clone and is open source and available under a Gnu Public License.
 * YAPP v3.0, or Yet Another Picospan Program was written by Dave Thaler. It's more difficult to install and maintain than Motet, and it has a relatively clunky feel. Like Caucus, it does have a command-line interface.
 * Cursive v0.11: a program to generate signatures and text using ASCII was written in 1985.
 * Party, The original version of party was written by Marcus Watts for System III Unix some time around 1983, for use on the original Mike Myers' M-Net system (this was the second free public-access Unix system in the world). An early version of party migrated to CDDB (the first public-access Unix system in the world) where it sprouted many new features, including channels.
 * Orville-Write v2.55.0, is an alternative to the default write program. It has many features which are not present in the default write including helper flags, telegrams, access control, and more.

Size
The Grex community has varied in size over the years. This is dated, 7/26/98 10:51:13 AM: We've been getting lots of new users. On the average day, we get 175 people signing up for new accounts. Last Saturday we had 250 new users, a new record. We keep breaking our records though. Grex now has about 24,000 users. At the current rate of growth, we expect to exceed 64K users sometime next summer. This has our Unix gurus worried because most versions of Unix, including ours, go cross-eyed at the concept of more than 64K users.

Currently Grex is small enough that you could read the bulk of the conferences daily, and address most of the regular posters on a first name basis. Conferences include Agora - the main meeting place, Programming, Cooking, Music, Gardening and many others. There is a group chat room called 'party', but the number of users you find online, vary depending on the day of the week and time. The majority of regular Grex users are from Ann Arbor, Michigan, but the Internet being what it is, users login from anywhere - from American soldiers in Afghanistan using SSH, to people from China.

Grex Walk
A group of Grexers meet every Saturday morning at 10 AM, throughout the entire year for a walk through the Arboretum, followed by lunch at the local eatery. The meeting place is at Gallup Park and everyone is invited. The walk usually gets underway at about 10:15, so don't worry about being a few minutes late.

Policy, governance and finances
Cyberspace Communications functions as an online democracy, with policies set by its users. The Co-op Conference is open to all users and provides a forum for discussing policy issues. The Board of Directors, elected by the members, is the formal governing body and uses consensus in the Co-op Conference as its primary guide for making decisions. Any member of Grex who can attend the monthly meetings, held in Ann Arbor, Michigan, is eligible to run for the Board of Directors. In addition, any member can call a binding vote by the membership on any policy issue. The Articles of Incorporation and Bylaws can be viewed online. Since Cyberspace Communications is a non-profit and a registered public charity, it is supported entirely by donations from users, and all staff members are volunteers.

Cyberspace Communications vs Engler
In 1978, the Michigan state legislature enacted a statute to protect children by prohibiting the distribution of obscene materials to children of that state (1978 Public Act 33, M.C.L. 722.671 et seq.; M.S.A. 25.254(1) et. seq). In an effort to modernize the statute due to the advent of computers, the Legislature then amended the statute by means of 1999 Public act 33. The act primarily attempted two things: 1) it added criminal prohibitions against using computers or the Internet to disseminate sexually explicit materials to minors 2) it changed the language of the statute so that the statute prohibits the dissemination of "sexually explicit" materials to minors rather than "obscene" materials.

The amendments to M.C.L. 722.671 et seq., was signed by Defendant, John Engler, the Governor of Michigan on June 1, 1999. It was set to take effect on August 1, 1999. Violations were punishable by up to two years in jail, and a fine of up to $10,000, or both.

Cyberspace claimed that the Act would adversely impact them because it was unconstitutionally vague or over-broad. They maintained that it would have a chilling effect on their freedom of speech under the First Amendment. People logging in to cyberspace.org, communicate online, both within and outside of the state of Michigan. Their speech would be accessible within and outside of the state of Michigan. For this reason, Cyberspace argued that the Act violated the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution. They requested that the Court issue a preliminary injunction to enjoin the amendments to the statute.

Michael J. Steinberg, Legal Director of the ACLU of Michigan said that "The law would reduce the level of discourse on the Internet to that which is appropriate to a seven year-old,"

The Court concluded that a preliminary injunction would not cause substantial harm to others, but would serve the public interest, because it would protect the free expression of millions of Internet users both within and outside the State of Michigan. The court further held that there were less restrictive means available, like closely monitoring discussion groups for children, software filters, porn filters and ad blockers, to achieve the same goal.

Cyberspace vs Engler is often quoted on the web and in books on law, in the context of free speech on the Internet.