feat: transcribe the registration guide
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Leo Gavilieau
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title: "How to register on ~vern"
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So you want to register an account over at ~vern. Different people have different reasons to joining, maybe they want to regain their privacy, abandon proprietary software or just for fun. However, it does not matter why you want to join as much as what you do with your membership.
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This guides covers 2 things, how to generate an SSH key and how to register an account. It also explains each of the ~vern services in the register page briefly so that you can make a choice.
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Before registering, you must generate an SSH key. An SSH key is used to identify a user, it can be used to login to ~vern's public UNIX servers or to push to ~vern's Git repositories. If you do not want to use the public UNIX server or do not want to generate an SSH key then [contact an administrator](/staff/#admins) to see how they can help you out.
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## How to generate an SSH key
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SSH keys are keys used to login to the ~vern public Unix server, it's necessary for an account using the normal registration method but you can [contact an administrator](/staff/#admins) to create an account without Pubnix access. Just be warned that you cannot host your own website on ~vern if you do that.
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There are currently guides for GNU/Linux, MacOS, Windows and BSD.
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### GNU/Linux
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Generating an SSH key on GNU/Linux is easy, as OpenSSH (the tool we will be using) is installed in most Linux distros by default (it is very useful after all)
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To test if you have OpenSSH, you can run the following command: `ssh -v`
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If the command returns any form of output then it does exist but if it says nothing then it doesn't exist.
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You can install openssh in most Linux distributions using your package manager, for Debian/Ubuntu you can use this command: `sudo apt install openssh-client`
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Start by opening a terminal and running this command `ssh-keygen -t ed25519`
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This will generate an ED25519 key, ED25519 is a relatively new encryption algorithm that is just as secure as the traditional RSA/DSA algorithm. But it is way more lightweight which means it's easy to use and storage.
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Now it will ask you for a couple of options including where to save it and whether to use a password. You can use a password but if you have an encrypted system or you store your machine in a safe and secure place then it most likely is not needed. But it's useful as extra insurance just in case your key gets lost.
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Now you should have an SSH key! an SSH key is typically divided into 2 parts: the public key and the private key. You can send the public key to anyone you want without any risks but the private key **has** to be kept secure. You cannot share with anyone else and you must be careful. The public key ends with `.pub` and the private key has no extension.
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~vern uses your public key to verify its you and to send encrypted data to you, your private key can be used to decrypt this data. This means anyone with your private key is able to listen to your communication and impersonate you, this is why its dangerous to share your private key with anyone or to use anyone else's public key.
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### MacOS
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The procedure should be similar to the one in GNU/Linux. SSH is pre-installed on most modern MacOS versions. If it isn't, you can get it via homebrew.
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### BSD
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The procedure should be similar to the one in GNU/Linux. OpenBSD and FreeBSD include OpenSSH by default. NetBSD users can get `security/openssh` from pkgsrc.
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### Windows
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This guide only applies to Windows 10 or later.
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There seems to be no instructions online on how to generate SSH keys for Windows 8 or earlier. Though you can contact the [wiki maintainers](/staff/#wiki) if you do find any so we can add it here.
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This is a step by step guide on how to generate an SSH key, you will need this to login into ~vern, setup your website and push changes to Gitea.
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Open up a command line terminal by pressing the Super key (The one with a Windows logo) and R at the same time and then typing cmd.exe and press Enter.
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You should now be presented with a command-line terminal.
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Type `ssh-keygen -t ed25519` to generate an ed25519 SSH key. An ED25519 key is super light and super easy to store, ed25519 is a new encryption cipher compared to the traditional RSA/DSA keys, RSA/DSA keys are compatible with all SSH servers and clients but they are large and they take up too much storage. For modernization purposes, use ed25519 instead of rsa. It is not less risky than RSA and it is easier to use.
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Now it will ask you where to save it, you can save it wherever you want but make sure to remember where it is.
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And now you can enter a passphrase for extra security, this is not needed if your OS is encrypted or if you store your computer in a safe place but the option is available for anyone who needs it. Just make sure to remember your passphrase because SSH will ask you for it when you connect, you can put it into a password manager too!
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Now you have an SSH key! This is what you will be using to connect to ~vern's public Unix server so keep it safe. Your SSH key is divided into 2 parts, the Public key which you can share with anyone you want and the private key which you *HAVE* to keep safe.
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The public key is what ~vern uses to verify its you, and you can send it to anyone you want but the private key is the part that does the decryption, do not share with anyone and be careful with it. The public key ends with .pub and the private key does not have an extension.
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It's absolutely important that you do not **ever** leak your private key otherwise anyone will be able to impersonate you and listen in to your communication with ~vern.
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## How to register an account at ~vern
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Now that you have an SSH key, we will finally register an account.
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Go to the ~vern register web page over at [https://vern.cc/register](https://vern.cc/register)
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And then type your desired username, the username cannot be changed so choose carefully. Pick something elegant and remember to keep it simple, long usernames are painful to type everyday. So keep it around 3 to 6 characters, anything less than that is confusing and anything more than that is hard to type a lot.
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In the next field, you will need to type an email, the email is used to contact you when your account has been successfully processed and is also used to contact you by the ~vern admins when necessary. We will not send spam or share this email with any third parties and it is only used to register services for your ~vern account.
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Now you need to add your SSH public key, Please remember the difference between public keys and private keys, DO NOT SHARE YOUR PRIVATE KEY WITH ANYONE ELSE OTHER THAN YOU, we need your public key, it is the key that ends with `.pub` please do not mess this up.
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And of course, do NOT send GPG keys or other stuff here, this is used for your login and if you do not send an SSH key then you will not be able to login.
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In the next field, type why you wanted to join, and please be honest. We rarely decline people's requests and so there is no wrong answer.
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Now you can select what services you want, anything you select here will be registered for you by the admins but you can always request an account later by contacting an admin. To help you out, I will briefly explain what each service is:
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* Pubnix: this is what your SSH key is used for, it is a UNIX terminal on one of ~vern's servers, here you can type commands, have fun and do whatever you want. You can also upload your website to a folder called `public_html` here and it will be available over at `YOUR_USERNAME.vern.cc`
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* Matrix: Matrix is a chat system that is end-to-end encrypted meaning not even the admins can see you messages. It is also decentralized which means there isn't a single person controlling everything (like Google or Facebook) and it is open-source which means the source code is publicly available and can be seen by everyone. Matrix is an ethical alternative to WhatsApp, Discord or any other instant messaging service.
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* Fediverse (Mastodon): The Fediverse is an interconnected system of servers that can all send messages to each other, it is like a social media except it respects your privacy and is open source and decentralized (meaning, there isn't one person who controls everything) The Fediverse is an ethical alternative to Twitter, Facebook or any other social media.
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* Gitea: Gitea is a platform used by software developers to upload their source code, file and respond to bug reports, feature suggestions and for developers to collaborate with each other. Gitea is an ethical alternative to GitHub, SourceForge, Google Code and GitLab EE.
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* Nextcloud: Nextcloud is a free alternative to Google Drive, OneDrive and other proprietary cloud storage providers. Nextcloud can be used as a backup tool or a synchronisation tool to synchronise files across devices, Nextcloud has native support for Linux, BSD, MacOS, Windows, Android, iOS and any Linux-Mobile system.
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* PeerTube: PeerTube is a free and ethical alternative to proprietary video hosting sites such as YouTube, Vimeo or DailyMotion. Like Mastodon, PeerTube can federate with other services on the Fediverse because it has ActivityPub support.
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* Jitsi: Jitsi is a meeting tool that respects your privacy, you can video chat with others and all of it is kept between the participants unlike Google, Zoom, Skype or Discord.
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* XMPP/Jabber: XMPP is a lot similar to Matrix, it is an instant messaging platform but it is very advanced compared to Matrix and does not have encryption out of the box. But still, it is an ethical alternative to WhatsApp, Skype and Discord. (Did you know: WhatsApp used XMPP back in the day, so you could talk with WhatsApp users on your own server but now Facebook took that functionality away)
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* The other 2 options are Onion and I2P services. explaining them is beyond this guide.
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Remember: there are no wrong answers here either, you can choose what you want and if something sounds boring to you then you are allowed to turn it off. You can always request an account by contacting the admins.
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Now that you are done, you can finally press submit, and a request to the admins will be sent. It will take around 48 hours for your account to be processed but when it does, you will be able to login to various ~vern services using the password located in `~/pass`.
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