Real Terminal, All Chrome

http://blog.koding.com/2013/09/real-terminal-all-chrome-no-nonsense/

by stefcosma • 13 years ago

153 105 13 years ago

blog.koding.com

gabemart• 13 years ago

Really cool. A little slow to load, perhaps, but I say that with no knowledge of how much is going on behind the scenes.

I have only one real complaint, and it's unique to me. I use a blank page as my new tab page instead of the default, and I could find no way to launch this extension other than setting my new tab page back to the default.

Edit: what's the password for sudo?

fka12• 13 years ago

hi koding dev here. if you are guest, you don't have sudo access. to have root access you need to be registered. and your login password will be your sudo password, too.

riskable9• 13 years ago

There's two ways that I'm aware of to launch a Chrome app without using the "new tab tab":

1) Use a bookmark. Chrome apps are just bookmarks, after all. If you want to be really clever about it you could even use a (personal, non-social) bookmarking web app like http://bookmarked.us/

2) Install an app that lets you launch other apps. I'm thinking of this one: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/app-launcher/odmpa... (App Launcher)

pdenya• 13 years ago

This is not a standard terminal replacement, it's a Chrome extension providing quicker access to koding.com's vm service. Vague headline, cool product but not relevant to me right now.

msoad• 13 years ago

I thin the read Terminal for Chrome is this

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/secure-shell/pnhec...

fka12• 13 years ago

hello, koding dev there. "koding.com's vm service" provides a standard real terminal. what are your expectations? asking to make it better.

Nursie4• 13 years ago

I think he meant (and I initially assumed from the headline) effectively bash in the browser, running locally.

Fuzzwah• 13 years ago

Damn this is cool.

I seem to be having some issue registering using my github account though. I suspect this is a load issue?

leeolay• 13 years ago

I think that is bugged, unrelated to load unfortunately. If you're interested in signing up with your Github account, try going to koding.com normally and using your github account there.

fka12• 13 years ago

chrome doesnt allow to redirect the github login page to extension page, it makes this feature buggy with the chrome app. you can simply go to http://koding.com/Register and login with your GitHub account. Then reopen your terminal, it will be opened with your registered session.

300• 13 years ago

Would you really SSH through this to your server? I mean, what about security...

WRNZ12• 13 years ago

password protect your private keys - its what the cool kids do anyway

drdaeman• 13 years ago

And type passwords to remote host where ssh client's running. Nope, not cool at all.

A possible workaround is implementing SSH agent forwarding support in Chrome app. However, you still have to trust remote ssh binary to only do what it's supposed to do while you're connected (i.e. not log your communications, not open secondary channels doing some weird stuff and so on).

riskable9• 13 years ago

While I personally would trust the Koding folks to be responsible with my credentials/SSH sessions, if you want a terminal in your browser using a server that you control why not use Gate One? (https://github.com/liftoff/GateOne)

It'll let you run whatever terminal app you like (defaults to SSH w/advanced features like session duplication).

Full disclosure: I am the author of Gate One.

cgilmer2• 13 years ago

I seriously thought the os library would be disabled

import os; for x, y, z in os.walk('/'): print x, y, z

BlackFX• 13 years ago

Why ?

cgilmer2• 13 years ago

I just wasn't expecting the freedom. Works for me.

jychang• 13 years ago

Why should it be? It's a VM. If you break anything, they just kill it and restart it.

D9u• 13 years ago

It's a cool project... I like it. I'd like it even more if it's accessible from my cheap Android phone.

flog• 13 years ago

I was thinking about creating this sort of service the other day... is this Docker under the covers?

fka12• 13 years ago

hi, koding dev there. nope, it's not docker.

onethumb2• 13 years ago

Does anyone know what Koding.com actually does? I watched both videos, read the "NOW PUBLIC" blog post, and I feel like it might be awesome - but I don't know. Is there a page that details what the product actually is? Kinda feel dumb for even asking, but I can't seem to find out?

charlesju• 13 years ago

They are providing an easy way to create a sandbox to code or learn to code.

A simple use case would be if you were to teach a class on coding that required a Linux environment to compile C, but the students brought their own laptops, you could

A. Struggle with all the possible laptop configurations and how to install VMs and/or the proper packages on those computers

B Use koding.com and have everyone do their projects on koding.com's VM so that everyone can focus on learning instead of configuring.

At the end of the project, you also get the added benefit that the tools used to validated homework and projects will be the same tools used to develop. This was a big problem when I was in school where students would develop on a rogue platform (ie. MS or OSX) and the TAs would compile and run the code on Linux and there would be build errors or run time errors for random configuration problems.

----

As for their business model, from what I can tell, they want to first create a universal platform for anyone that wants a linux sandbox to play, code, learn. Then they will charge businesses or universities that want to upgrade to have a lot of access or special VMs.

Karunamon2• 13 years ago

Indeed, this fits my use case to an absolute tee right now. I'm trying to pick up Rails, and doing anything related under a Windows environment is downright painful, and I'd rather not dualboot just to get into "work mode".

A free VM I can access with any browser? Awesome.

onethumb2• 13 years ago

Thanks for the reply. Sounds neat. Sure be nice if Koding had even a single web page the said this. :)

zallarak• 13 years ago

This is pretty awesome - they are ahead of the curve. It's quite appealing to be able to have access to a full dev environment/VM with just Google Chrome as a prerequisite. I know Google does a lot of development with a similar sort of tool - nice that this sort of infrastructure is rolled out for smaller shops.

kzahel• 13 years ago

I was hoping for a better CROSH/HTerm (ChromeOS's builtin terminal emulator) but ended up with some weird something else that I don't understand nor want anyway.

dylanvee• 13 years ago

What do you find deficient about hterm?

riskable9• 13 years ago

Just curious: Have you tried Gate One at all? https://github.com/liftoff/GateOne

I wrote it to solve the problem of, "I need to SSH right now but I don't want to install anything." I've been improving it pretty steadily for about two years now and people seem to like it. I've even got paying customers so it's certainly usable for at least a few people ;)

If you try it and you think it sucks send me a long, detailed ranting email (you can use the feedback form at liftoffsoftware.com if you want). I love em! What's more useful than honest, detailed feedback? I always fix what I can.

jijji• 13 years ago

so let me get this straight... they wrote a terminal app that sends all your code to some third party? wow yeah lets just throw security out the window. no mention of the privacy implications on any of this. not sure if any of my clients would want their intellectual property sent out to some random third party. thanks but no thanks. i'd rather use xterm or gnome-terminal.

WRNZ12• 13 years ago

or github, aws etc. Oh yeah thats right, couldnt use those either. I guess you host everything yourself on a private network that you install all the connectivity for globally ?

comex2• 13 years ago

I don't think this should be downvoted, since of course it is also technically possible for Amazon to snoop on your EC2 servers. However, Koding's generic privacy policy and 404ed terms of service are not that inspiring on the matter.

laumars• 13 years ago

Actually, I do host everything privately and only connect to it from trusted machines over encrypted channels. But I'm far from typical in regards to preferring my own clouds over popular trusted resources.

For what it's worth, I think the level of criticism you're receiving is grossly unfair. However I also don't think you've done yourself any favours here either. You content has been focused on how "cool" this technology is without really focusing on the security of your service. Since this is a hacker forum and since the very nature of SSH is a secure communications channel, it's understandable that people are concerned about this aspect of your business.

However I also think people have gone overboard. This is a typical example of a growing trend on HN for members to dismiss others hard work - after all, it's easier to contribute in a community by offering negative criticism than it is to create content for all to criticise.

Sadly though, even in spite of my issues with the direction this thread has taken and the amount of negativity posted, I do have to agree with the points being raised. So as much as this project interests me and looks innovative, personally I would rather stick with native client running locally. I don't feel you're trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist (sessions can be restored via terminal multiplexers such as screen and tmux and there are already a number of native client terminal emulators available for every OS imaginable). In effect, what you've done is created a product that raises security concerns without offering any real benefits. And it really pains me to say this given my previous rant about the amount of negativity in this thread.

Best of luck though.

pandemicsyn• 13 years ago

So is http://koding.com a http://nitrous.io competitor? Can't really tell at the moment since all the main page says right now is:

A new way for developers to work. Software development has finally evolved. It's now social, in the browser and free.

And then throws an error about not being able to connect to the backend.

[edit] Hope it is since nitrous.io seems a bit expensive.

ufmace2• 13 years ago

I've been using nitrous.io for a month or so. It looks like this is the same thing, except without the browser-based text editor, which I kinda like since I haven't gotten really used to working in any of the terminal text editors yet. It's not clear if they support real ssh access or sftp either.

I'm not sure how nitrous is expensive. I can't find any ways to give them money right now at all, or even any proposed future pricing. I have a few quibbles with their system, like the way their servers seem to shut down if not used for a couple of days, the ssh sessions disconnect semi-randomly, and no root access to install things that aren't already there, but cost doesn't seem to be an issue.

fomojola• 13 years ago

I think you're looking for this: https://www.nitrous.io/pricing

WRNZ12• 13 years ago

Yes we support SSH and SCP. Yes we also have browser based editor. Just need to go to the main site. We also give root etc. As long as your using the VM it will not shut off - however it will shutdown 15 mins after you logout.

riskable9• 13 years ago

There's a lot of companies offering web-based IDEs with built-in terminals now. They've already started to differentiate themselves with unique features too! For example:

http://wakari.io/ - Focus: Scientific computing and analytics. They also offer a great implementation of IPython Notebook (really, the integration with Anaconda/conda is awesome). It's run by the folks at http://Continuum.io (Anaconda, conda, Numba, IOPro, Bokeh, etc).

http://www.devtable.com/ - A really slick (love the default dark theme) Web-based IDE. The GUI is really nice (minimal--the good kind) and doesn't "get in the way" like some of the competition. They also have lightning-quick deployment of your apps to GAE (the speed at which you can deploy/test your code impressed me). They also have an interesting LaTeX project option which also has instant deployment/testing. Useful because getting the LaTeX tools setup on a workstation can be a real pain (and they're SLOOOOOOW).

Siecje• 13 years ago

Is there a better linux terminal than bash?

manojlds• 13 years ago

Bash is not a terminal.

fka12• 13 years ago

bash is not a terminal client but if you are searching for a bash replacement try zsh or fish.

mrbill• 13 years ago

It's an app that provides a dedicated interface to VM services they offer. Not a general-purpose local terminal; not interested.

kps• 13 years ago

I wanted to see Chrome[1] running in a Real Terminal[2]. I mean… lynx just isn't good at Javascript.

[1] http://www.google.com/chrome/ [2] http://terminals.classiccmp.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

AsymetricCom2• 13 years ago

Real SSH, all symlink.

WRNZ12• 13 years ago

Say wha?

fka12• 13 years ago

didnt understand what you mean.

AsymetricCom2• 13 years ago

Still trying to figure out what the headline means myself.

Gnewt• 13 years ago

I am so, so tired of all this Koding spam. I've seen spam from multiple accounts (one of which was fka, who now admits to being a dev) on both HN and Reddit.

WRNZ12• 13 years ago

We are pretty open about who is staff and who is not. if you don't like what we are doing thats your prerogative. Simple fact is we offer you a dev environment with root on your dev VM for free. All setup and ready to go in seconds. No one else is doing this, so call it spam if you like but the number of users signing up daily and enjoying the service disagree with you (oh and yes I am staff).

teh_klev• 13 years ago

Word of advice, add something to your profile that clarifies who you are.

fka12• 13 years ago

Am I spamming? I am trying to answer questions individually. And yes I am one of the devs.

fka12• 13 years ago

you joined last week, you have no submission, you have two comments at all and they all about koding -and me- :) what is your problem with me? are you my ex-girlfriend or something?

swuecho• 13 years ago

Great! thanks.

rsync• 13 years ago

"Terminal is the core of all development that’s ever been done in the history of computing."

... my high school hypercard stacks beg to differ...

harrytuttle2• 13 years ago

You took the words out of my mouth. Oh and my HP48 has done many hours as a primary computation device.

pqs• 13 years ago

I also learned to program with my HP48GX and my HP49G. When we couldn't imagine we would have smartphones, we already had programmable computers in our pockets :-)

tekacs• 13 years ago

Well the end-machines that most people sat at were still technically 'terminal's. That is, after all, where the name came from, is it not? :P

zx2c42• 13 years ago

PSA: Don't count on this to be secure. Not just because Koding can obviously monitor everything you do, but because the implementation appears to rely on some more or less flimsy kernel container isolation (user namespaces etc). This means hackers can break out of one instance of this and enter others. So please, don't use this as a bouncing point to SSH to other servers or for anything else that might be even a little sensitive.

Also, it's apparently unpatched since May:

    $ cat /proc/version
    Linux version 3.9.0-0-generic (root@salt-master.in.koding.com) (gcc version 4.6.3 (Ubuntu/Linaro 4.6.3-1ubuntu5) ) #4userns5 SMP Mon May 13 06:15:34 PDT 2013

WRNZ12• 13 years ago

I have $1000 here waiting for you if you can break from one container to another. I need valid proof in the form of source code for your exploit. send it to hello @ koding.com and we will paypal you the money.

hollerith• 13 years ago

Is this offer open to anyone or just the person you are replying to?

zx2c42• 13 years ago

That's not very much money for an LXC 0day.

code_duck• 13 years ago

I was hoping to try this on my iphone... I made it past registration but the site doesn't seem too mobile (small screen) friendly after that. I wasn't able to read or close the modal that came up.

Real Terminal, All Chrome

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