Canonical will decommission its long-running text-hosting service Ubuntu Pastebin on May 31.
The company is pulling the plug as part of a broader “infrastructure modernization and migration project”.
Ubuntu Pastebin, which works similarly to GitHub’s Gist, albeit without the revision history, has been available to the community since late 20071 It originally launched under the paste.ubuntu.com domain before adding pastebin.ubuntu.com, which is live until the end of the month.
The service was partly launched to stop thedistro’s official IRC support channels from being flooded with reams of terminal output by users seeking help. It was also used by community members to share simple instructions, commands and scripts to cut down on repeating things.
However, the service was never meant for archival purposes. The site’s own blurb notes it is “intended for use as a short-term exchange”, with users warned that data is “not guaranteed to be permanent, and may be removed at any time.”
Well, that time is nigh.
Will its loss be felt? Outside of core Ubuntu developer circles, the service has been somewhat forgotten. The immediate headache will be in old websites, forum threads etc that rely on links to it.
Though useful, the text-sharing service was never an archival service, and users could set an expiration period, all data was publicly accessible (with a link).
If you think you might have some useful scripts, notes or configuration files stashed away on there, now is the time to log in to your Ubuntu One account2 to check, and back them up before they vanish for good.
If you maintain notes you point others to, be aware those links are about to break (so update any wikis, blog posts or forum threads with new links).
Alternatives to Ubuntu Pastebin include GitHub Gist, PrivateBin and Debian Pastebin – but if you have a favourite you use, feel free to give it a shout out in the comments.
- The Ubuntu paste service predates my discovery of Ubuntu (and thus this blog). I can’t find a formal announcement on its availability, but a handful of links (seemingly) from 2008 have links to old pastes. ↩︎
- Using the Ubuntu Pastebin requires an Ubuntu One account now, but in the early days it could be used anonymously ↩︎
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