Welcome to ChivaNet!

ChivaNet is a miniature Internet Service Provider located in the Chiva Town neighborhood of Las Cruces, NM. Our mission is to provide free or low-cost Internet access for local residents, and a retro Internet experience for users worldwide. We also aim to provide an informative, educational, and socially friendly environment in which to experience a sample of what the Internet looked like prior to the domination of the world wide web in the mid-1990s, as well as providing a low-noise forum for the exchange of ideas and interests.

News

European Union Access Available (8 Oct 2018)

We have decided to once again make ChivaNet services available to citizens and residents of the European Union. If you have a GDPR data removal request or concern, please direct it to gdprcompliance@chivanet.org and we will work with you to address it ASAP.

New Services Available (6 Sep 2018)

The following new services have been instituted:

• Anonymous FTP service restored at ftp.chivanet.org
• Gopher server available at gopher.chivanet.org
• USENET News available at news.chivanet.org

USENET access is currently only available to users connecting via VPN.

DISCUSS Service Restored (29 Mar 2018)

The DISCUSS service has been restored! Please use the discuss command from your shell account to access our discussion boards.

See http://www.chivanet.org/discuss for full instructions on using DISCUSS.

Major System Failure (13 Oct 2017)

The storage server that hosts virtual machine images had a catastrophic failure of its Ultra320 SCSI host bus adapter, which destroyed the following machines:

• discuss
• ares
• pontus
• erebus
• selene
• cisvax

We replaced the failed server with a much newer, more reliable, and faster SAS-based System X3650 M3 machine running OpenIndiana. The pontus and erebus machines have been recreated, and discuss is in the process of being restored.

We have also added a new machine, hypnos, which is an actual, physical Compaq AlphaServer DS10L running OpenVMS 8.3. This machine will be open for ChivaNet users, and supplies an amazing collection of program development tools and compilers.

There is also now an IBM OS/MVS 3.8j system (emulated using Hercules), called eurytus, that we will be opening up for ChivaNet users, once we work out the kinks. We will be adding another Hercules system, called gration, that will be running IBM VM/370.

System 'hemera' upgraded!

Our main UNIX host, hemera.chivanet.org, a Sun Microsystems SPARCserver 20 running Solaris 7 which also provides web services for this site as well as shell accounts, has been upgraded from a pair of 50MHz Sun SuperSPARC CPUs to a pair of 125MHz Ross HyperSPARC CPUs. This provides significantly faster loading of web pages, massively improves the performance of secure shell (ssh) connections, and generally much better software performance, while still maintaining ChivaNet's signature, retro feel.

DISCUSS On-Line Discussion Platform Added!

The DISCUSS service allows you to participate in on-line discussions, exchange private messages, and connect with other ChivaNet users. You can connect to the DISCUSS service from your ChivaNet shell account by typing discuss at the shell prompt of your UNIX account.

See http://www.chivanet.org/discuss for full instructions on using DISCUSS.

FTP Service Added!

Anonymous FTP is now available at ftp://ftp.chivanet.org

This service will host free and shareware software.

Free Wi-Fi

Free wi-fi access is available. Simply connect your computer to the chivanet wi-fi network. The range of this service is limited, and is not intended for video or music streaming. The range of this service will be expanded in the coming months.

Dial-up Internet Access (coming soon)

We will soon be providing PPP dial-up Internet access for analog modems up to 56K/sec (V.90 protocol).

IRC - Internet Relay Chat

ChivaNet provides an IRC server at irc.chivanet.org. This IRC server is connected to the Synchronet IRC Network, and provides several chat rooms covering various conversation topics.

Please refer to our Terms of Service for rules governing the use of our IRC server.

Gopher

We provide a Gopher service at gopher://gopher.chivanet.org, which mirrors the public discussion areas from the Chiva Town Social Hub.

Bulletin Board System

ChivaNet hosts the full-service Chiva Town Social Hub BBS at the following addresses:

• hub.chivanet.org (telnet)
• hub.chivanet.org (www)

The BBS participates in multiple BBS networks:

• DOVE-Net: BBS ID is CHIVANET
• FidoNet: Node number 1:305/1
• CSCNet: Node number 719:506/0

System Status