Gate One 1.1 Released: Run Vim In Your Browser

Riskable writes "Version 1.1 of Gate One (HTML5 terminal emulator/SSH client) was just released (download). New features include security enhancements, major performance improvements, mobile browser support, improved terminal emulation, automatic syntax highlighting of syslog messages, PDFs can now be captured/displayed just like images, Python 3 support, Internet Explorer (10) support, and quite a lot more (full release notes). There's also a new demo where you can try out vim in your browser, play terminal games (nethack, vitetris, adventure, zangband, battlestar, greed, robotfindskitten, and hangman), surf the web in lynx, and a useful suite of IPv6-enabled network tools (ping, traceroute, nmap, dig, and a domain name checker)." Gate One is dual licensed (AGPLv3/Commercial Licensing); for individuals, it's pay-as-you-please.

Comments

Not even /.ed yet! ;-)

[PaulBu]

Was suprised...

Paul B.

Re:Not even /.ed yet! ;-)

[h4rr4r]

The slashdot effect is not what it once was. Also this place is full of MS and Apple folks these days. They would never know what to do with vim.

Re:Not even /.ed yet! ;-)

[Riskable]

Well, I'm monitoring it in real-time. If the demo servers start getting overloaded I'll add more.

In fact, I just added two extra servers: http://gateone3.rs.liftoffsoftware.com/ and http://gateone4.rs.liftoffsoftware.com/ just to be safe.

The two, 1GB Rackspace instances that were up when this news hit the front page are still running fine at this moment.

Re:Not even /.ed yet! ;-)

[PaulBu]

Good job! ;-)

I liked ATDT5551212 touch... Feeling nostalgic today, I'd guess...

Paul B.

Re:Not even /.ed yet! ;-)

[NotSanguine]

The slashdot effect is not what it once was. Also this place is full of MS and Apple folks these days. They would never know what to do with vim.

:q![return]
$ emacs[return]
--all the vi[m] you'll ever need to know.

Re:Not even /.ed yet! ;-)

[ByOhTek]

:q!<return>
emacs

or :q!<return>
nano

or :q!<return>
aee

Re:Not even /.ed yet! ;-)

[EvanED]

A couple comments:

1) I tried hangman but it wasn't working; Chrome 22.0.1229.94 on RHEL6. (It's slightly out of date -- see "RHEL6." :-))

2) I strongly dislike putting it into the browser (for a couple reasons, that just doesn't work with the way I use terminals); any plans for some stand-alone program (even if it's just a wrapper around a webkit widget or something)?

3) I like some of the recent efforts towards rethinking what it means to be a terminal emulator (embedded images and such), so kudos for that. You're not the only one, though you seem to have taken it further than most of the other projects I've seen.

Re:Not even /.ed yet! ;-)

[EvanED]

2) I strongly dislike putting it into the browser (for a couple reasons, that just doesn't work with the way I use terminals); any plans for some stand-alone program (even if it's just a wrapper around a webkit widget or something)?

I guess I should also say: a lot of the focus of this story's discussion has been in the context of connecting to remote system; in such a context, a browser is more reasonable. My comment is based on a "I want a cool terminal to use locally" viewpoint.

Re:Not even /.ed yet! ;-)

[Anonymous Coward]

:x

Re:Not even /.ed yet! ;-)

[h4rr4r]

emacs is one thing, but nano?
Nano is for children.

Re:Not even /.ed yet! ;-)

[Anonymous Coward]

joe was the default editor on Slackware in the early days of Linux. I don't if it still is, but it's remained my default editor for over 15 years. It's a pain in the butt, but I install it on every system I use. I can use vi (original vi, not merely vim) in a pinch, but only know a handful of commands.

Re:Not even /.ed yet! ;-)

[Anonymous Coward]

ZZ

Re:Not even /.ed yet! ;-)

[Anonymous Coward]

The slashdot effect is not what it once was. Also this place is full of MS and Apple folks these days. They would never know what to do with vim.

Of course they would! The Apple folks would scoff at the idea of a text editor — one without even a single rounded rectangle! — being offered for anything less than $40, let alone free. There's obviously something suspect about that; if it were truly good, it would be sold for a profit, and if it were the best, it would be the most expensive. QED.

The MS folks, of course, would grunt at it and hit it with sticks and rocks (only Genuine(tm) Windows(r) Rocks, though!) until it went away. But don't worry about them! They're REALLY patient on that front. Firefox, Opera, Chrome, and Safari WILL fall someday, damnit!

Re:Not even /.ed yet! ;-)

[fm6]

Excuse me? I'm an MS person and I use VIM every day. I actually consider it obsolete, but I've been using Vi-like editors for 30 years and am too old to start over.

The Slashdot effect happens when somebody implements a simple-minded LAMP server and suddenly becomes popular. Modern web applications are more robust. They're implemented using lightweight frameworks that don't have such a high per-user cost and which can scale up quickly when unexpected demand appears. This is the sort of advance people overlook when they say "cloud" is just marketspeak for "server".

Re:Not even /.ed yet! ;-)

[davydagger]

oh seriously fuck off.

nano is by far the best, simplest, easiest choice there is for command line(curses) editing text files. Plus modern versions of nano do syntax highlighting for scripts and code.

emacs is hidelously over-complicated. emacs is also terribly overfeatured and violates the UNIX philosphy of "do one thing, do it well". Also 1975 called, they want vi back.

emacs X11 is also terrible and extremely awkward, clumbsy and unfeatured as a text editor. many modern heavy weight text editors like gnome's gedit are power powerful, as well as easier to use, and simply more intuitive.

How hard is it on a modern linux desktop to use gamin to read the shebang and auto highlight syntax??

Do I really need crypto, a calculator, a calender, or other text based anacronisms in my text editor when they've been replaced with really pretty, extremely functional X11+GTK/QT apps a very long time ago. (that all seems to inter-operate with eachother based on freedesktop.org open standards, accross all 4 desktop enviroments I have installed)

Re:Not even /.ed yet! ;-)

[lister king of smeg]

I will stick with nano. When I need to work in a terminal emacs and vi(m) just seem to much of a pain in the ass. Why would in need to have a text editor be my browser, my mail client, rss reader and chess opponent (emacs)? Why do I need to switch modes to move around text files when I have arrow keys on my keyboard(vi(m)) to do that? Nano is clean and simple. It edits text files. If I need to do something else I would use something else. Emacs seems to me in my humble opinion to have forgotten the Unix philosophy of "do one thing and do it well" and has instead gone for the do absolutely everything you can cram in until you run out of key combinations to trigger them school of thought.

Re:Not even /.ed yet! ;-)

[Riskable]

Hmmm... Not sure why Hangman isn't working. I'll fix it (not a priority). I suspect that I forgot to copy its word dictionary into the chroot jail.

Re:Not even /.ed yet! ;-)

[lister king of smeg]

* sorry hadn't read the other reply that said pretty much the same thing as i just did.

Re:Not even /.ed yet! ;-)

[Riskable]

So run Gate One locally: https://localhost/

I use it like that every day!

Re:Not even /.ed yet! ;-)

[jc42]

emacs is hidelously over-complicated. emacs is also terribly overfeatured and violates the UNIX philosphy of "do one thing, do it well".

I much prefer to express it with the old comment that emacs is a great operating system; too bad it comes with such a crappy editor.

I've forgotten who originated that one. Of course, you see all sorts of variants, insulting its editor in as many ways as you can imagine.

Re:Not even /.ed yet! ;-)

[Riskable]

If you like the ADTD part you should run the demo and hit 'q' for a special surprise =D

Re:Not even /.ed yet! ;-)

[Anonymous Coward]

emacs X11 is also terrible and extremely awkward, clumbsy and unfeatured as a text editor

"You're so dumb you don't even have wisdom teeth."

Slashdot right now has the QOTD that crystallizes what emacs users think of your comment.

Re:Not even /.ed yet! ;-)

[Anonymous Coward]

> Why do I need to switch modes to move around text files when I have arrow keys on my keyboard(vi(m)) to do that?

Uh, you don't have to unless your vim is seriously misconfigured. Yes, about 10 years back, "misconfigured" was the default that most distros shipped, but that's long since.

Re:Not even /.ed yet! ;-)

[jc42]

A few years back, I experimented with a lot of editors (and terminal emulators), when I got seriously involved in i18n (internationalization) efforts. I was at that time unable to find any editor that handled UTF-8 encoding as sanely as vim, so I've stuck with that. It'd be interesting to know if there are other editors that do a good job with mixed writing systems these days. Others have to have worked on it, but I haven't found time to repeat my investigations (which were a really frustrating time sink).

I also tested out a lot of terminal emulators. I'd long preferred xterm, because of all its nice features (except for its confused, inconsistent command line args ;-), but I gave up on it when I found myself dealing with some documents that mixed English, Chinese and Arabic writing. I found that xterm could do Chinese in only a few font sizes, and Arabic in only a few font sizes -- and the lists didn't overlap. Also, xterm sometimes insisted on showing Arabic and Hebrew text left-to-right. I couldn't find a font size that would correctly display a page with both Chinese and Arabic text. Of course, most others couldn't handle one or the other of these alone, and most were really crappy for right-to-left writing. But the linux and apple "Terminal" terminal emulators could both handle the job, so I've been using those.

I'm still looking for a way to remotely edit such mixed-writing docs remotely over an ssh link, without it occasionally going insane and forcing me to do a "kill -9" on the terminal process to recover. Again, the linux and apple terminals seem to do the best job of this, but they both sometimes go insane for no obvious reason; killing them and repeating the operations in a new terminal window usually "fixes" the problem.

It's been a couple of decades now since Ken solved our charset problems. Why is it taking so long to produce versions of things like editors and text display "terminal" windows that do it right?

Maybe moving to a "browser as OS" approach is what is needed. This also seems insane, but if the rest of the software world continues to show such contempt for languages other than those that the author(s) speak/read/write, maybe we don't have much choice.

Still, locally I find that vim does a fairly good job with mixed-writing documents. The main problem seems to be the awkwardness of switching between keyboards for non-Latin writing, and the need for ASCII chars for vim commands. If someone has solved this problem, it'd be interesting to read about.

Re:Not even /.ed yet! ;-)

[Anonymous Coward]

emacs is hidelously over-complicated. emacs is also terribly overfeatured and violates the UNIX philosphy of "do one thing, do it well"

Emacs has been my trusted editor for 25 years. I use it mainly for the one thing it does well: typing. I use emacs for ASCII graphics, email, resume writing, coding, debugging, as a shell buffer etc. In other words, whenever I have to do typing. I hate typing with the browser, which misunderstands C-a, C-p and C-s. In fact, whenever I have to edit anything challenging (say, wiki pages), I copy the text to emacs and back.

How do you survive without keyboard macros in your mail client?

I find myself using *scratch* as a desktop calculator all the time. Just today I was composing a mail reply (in emacs) and needed to take some data from a GNUS mail message. I copied a rectangle to *scratch*, crunched the performance numbers and copied the results into the reply.

I telecommute. Emacs works perfectly on remote text terminals. And I can open files over scp connections and M-x grep through them without touching the mouse or the arrow keys. Again, keyboard macros make it possible to make uniform changes to dozens of files without developing a carpal-tunnel syndrome.

No one shall expel us from the Paradise that RMS has created.

Re:Not even /.ed yet! ;-)

[blkmajik]

Our interviews for sysadmins always ask what editor people use on their Linux boxes. People always think it's a funny joke due to the vi/emacs war, but it is actually a serious question and there is only two wrong answers: nano and pico. If you answer nano or pico you will not get hired.

It actually shows that you do not know the system as well as you are claiming. nano/pico will silently corrupt files on you.

Try it for yourself. Create a file with long lines in vi/emacs. Have a bunch of words on the long line. Now open that file in pico/nano and put a single space at the beginning of the long line and save the file.

If you go in with emacs/vi you will now notice an extra carriage return that you did not put in. If I ever catch a sysadmin using nano on a system file it is cause for termination.

Re:Not even /.ed yet! ;-)

[EvanED]

That's where the comment/question about running in a browser comes in.

Re:Not even /.ed yet! ;-)

[sydneyfong]

That's why they say emacs is an OS.

The rest of us use a terminal/shell to do the things you describe, and do it just as well.

Re:Not even /.ed yet! ;-)

[antifoidulus]

I'd give you a round of applause, but since my fingers are so gnarled from years of emacs use, I am incapable of doing so.

Re:Not even /.ed yet! ;-)

[blade8086]

not to mention, I don't think you can do something like: :.,+10!sed -e 's:one:another:' | fmt

^ take the next ten lines and replace them with the result of running them through a pipeline that replaces
the string 'one' with 'another' and reformat using linebreaks.

very easily.

or

dd
20j
p

^ delete this line, move 20 lines down, and paste

but yes AS LONG AS AH HAVE MAH ARROW KEYS I HAS THE BETTAR EDITAR AND YUU ARE STUPID AND OWLD

(translation: I'm an idiot, and since I can only conceptualize arrow keys due to my lack of experience, which concequently
    causes HUGE COGNITIVE DISSONANCE because I think of myself as hot shit, I will project all of this onto you by calling
    you old, inferior, and stupid)

I only say it this harshly, because I've been there myself. only.. not with vi. I saw the power in that immediately,
and knew the pain would be worth the gain.

but yea, in other areas.

GROW UP

Re:Not even /.ed yet! ;-)

[blade8086]

vi thepost

:s/vi/BEINGLAZY/g

:s/[Nn]ano/vi/g

:s/arrow keys on my keyboard/simple mneumonic and batch oriented shortcuts/g

:s/switch modes/arrow key all over the damned place/g

:x

cat thepost

I will stick with vi. When I need to work in a terminal emacs and BEINGLAZY(m) j
ust seem to much of a pain in the ass. Why would in need to have a text editor b
e my browser, my mail client, rss reader and chess opponent (emacs)? Why do I ne
ed to arrow key all over the damned place to move around text files when I have
simple mneumonic and batch oriented shortcuts(BEINGLAZY(m)) to do that? vi is cl
ean and simple. It edits text files. If I need to do something else I would use
something else. Emacs seems to me in my humble opinion to have forgotten the Uni
x philosophy of "do one thing and do it well" and has instead gone for the do ab
solutely everything you can cram in until you run out of key combinations to tri
gger them school of thought.

Re:Not even /.ed yet! ;-)

[Riskable]

UPDATE: Hangman is now working. Huzzah!

Re:Not even /.ed yet! ;-)

[anomaly256]

Complete rubbish. You can turn off the final carriage return in nanorc - it's there because a lot of scripted config file parsers require it. I bet you didn't even know nano can do regex search&replace either. ps: "real engineers don't blame their tools" *happily employed developer and sysadmin of 20+ years who uses nano*

Re:Not even /.ed yet! ;-)

[Anonymous Coward]

I still use vi on a daily basis.

Re:Not even /.ed yet! ;-)

[davydagger]

was just thinking that. ;)

Re:Not even /.ed yet! ;-)

[Wolfrider]

--You sir, are a jackass. Cause for termination, indeed. Obviously you've never spent time without a job, scrambling to eat and try to survive - much less pay your bills. You arrogant idiot.

--I use nano, jstar, mcedit, whatever comes to hand and is installed on the box. Only use vi if there's nothing better. I stopped using EDLIN back when Xtree Pro Gold came out, because **it was a better tool.**

--Cause for a friendly warning, I would accept. Cause for termination? FU.

Cool,

[Compaqt]

but what's the point?

I.e., is there a need that vi, vim, and gvim don't fill?

Or is the point merely slashvertising?

Re:Cool,

[ByOhTek]

did you RTFS? Having a terminal emulator in your browser could be very useful in certain restricted environments you might come across.

Now lets see an X11 implementation :-)

Re:Cool,

[Cyko_01]

Then you are gonna love boot to gecko (aka firefox OS)

Re:Cool,

[Anonymous Coward]

Here you go.

Re:Cool,

[Riskable]

Now lets see an X11 implementation :-)

It's in the roadmap. It's just a matter of priorities and time.

Re:Cool,

[mu22le]

Didn't you hear? Everything has to run in the browser now. I'm waiting for the operating system that runs in a browser so I can create an infinite recursive loop of stupidity.

And here you go!

Re:Cool,

[Compaqt]

Yeah, I read the summary, but it doesn't mention a raison d'etre.

Basically, it's supposed to be a method for violating your company's IT policies. Got it.

Re:Cool,

[Kevin Stevens]

The main use of this is being able to access an environment from anywhere. This includes networks that do not allow you to ssh out of their networks, which is becoming a common security practice these days.

I have this installed on my server, as my company's netsense filter is far too aggressive and I can not access personal email or chat programs from work. I find from time to time I need to answer personal emails in a timely manner (like when I bought a house), and tapping out messages on a phone doesn't cut it. Gate one is actually quite awesome. I used predecessors that had the same functionality, and they were only useful in the most dire situations because of the slight lag and other display issues they had. You can actually attempt to do some real work with Gate One, though obviously putty is preferred if you can use it.

Re:Cool,

[Desler]

The main use of this is being able to access an environment from anywhere. This includes networks that do not allow you to ssh out of their networks, which is becoming a common security practice these days.

So the main use is to get fired for violating your employer's IT security policy? Brilliant!

Re:Cool,

[ByOhTek]

Wow.... you live in a very limited world. It must be nice and simple there - how do I get there?

I can install whatever the hell I want on my computer at work.
However, to get a good reliable ssh client on an arbitrary tablet/phone, using something HTML5 is quite convenient.

Please, go out and exercise your imagination, don't expect us to do it for you.

Re:Cool,

[rpresser]

Can you not conceive of a roaming consultant who does not wish to install his whole toolset on his client's machine?
Also, browser -> remote ssh server -> remote network is still more secure than local ssh -> remote network.

Re:Cool,

[greg1104]

There's Atomic OS, OS.js...that building an OS is ECMAScript seemed like a good idea to multiple people makes me cry. For full buzzword bingo, run the local browser in a virtual machine, and host the browser OS code in the cloud.

Re:Cool,

[Anonymous Coward]

I can not conceive of hiring a roaming consultant who thinks my security policies don't apply to him. I can not think of retaining an employee who thinks that using a web server as a backdoor into my network (in violation of my policies) is a good idea.

Re:Cool,

[Kevin Stevens]

It is a lot easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.

I run a few websites that generate a small but growing amount of traffic (and hopefully one day, revenue), so its also nice to know that from any computer, I can log in to my jump server, and take a look if something goes down, with nothing more than a web browser. It could be a locked down computer only offering a web browser, or a friend's computer I don't want to be fumbling around and installing putty on, etc.

But yeah 98% of my use is avoiding IT policies.

Re:Cool,

[Desler]

Not when the company's security policies explicitly forbid it.

Re:Cool,

[vux984]

However, to get a good reliable ssh client on an arbitrary tablet/phone, using something HTML5 is quite convenient.

What major tablet or phone doesn't have good ssh clients available?

Re:Cool,

[Anonymous Coward]

This includes networks that do not allow you to ssh out of their networks, which is becoming a common security practice these days.

The GateOne server is listening on port 443: that's the only trick it has for enabling this.

Many companies are now performing proxy-based MitM inspection of data passing through 443, which will shut this down in a blink.

Re:Cool,

[Anonymous Coward]

The biggest problem with ssh is that it allows the users to create an encrypted tunnel into the company network, other than that most sound companies would not mind if their employees spend a few minutes of ther lunch break managing their torrents over ssh or such things.

Re:Cool,

[bws111]

Based on that, I'd say 100% of your use is avoiding good security policies. Seriously, you log into your server, to perform admin functions, from systems you don't control? That is beyond stupid.

Re:Cool,

[Jailbrekr]

Question:

Is there a handy HOWTO to make it a wee bit more embeddable, such as adding defaults for port, host and user?

Re:Cool,

[cayenne8]

What major tablet or phone doesn't have good ssh clients available?

For free...?

Re:Cool,

[Kevin Stevens]

This isn't mission control, we are talking about a few blogs here. The security policies I am avoiding are intended to prevent data being sent out of the firm undetected, and I am not doing that, and I don't have the ability to do that in any reasonable way.

I don't consider loading up a web browser from a friend's house or wherever I am in an outage situation to log into my server "beyond stupid." I wouldn't even consider it mildly stupid, and its certainly not something to flame someone about.

I hope your day gets better.

Re:Cool,

[Anonymous Coward]

did you RTFS? Having a terminal emulator in your browser could be very useful in certain restricted environments you might come across.

Now lets see an X11 implementation :-)

Since adopting GateOne earlier this year I have been able to remotely and securely access GNU/Linux servers anywhere I have an Internet connection and without having to install software on any computer or tablet. I was visiting my parents and remotely accessed a virtual machine running Debian GNU/Linux to edit my c.v. (resume) all from the comfort of my BlackBerry PlayBook tablet.

Re:Cool,

[vux984]

For free...?

Yes, free SSH clients.

But even if you looked at it vs the paid ones... So what?

Rather than spend a couple dollars on a local native app you'd rather set up and maintain a web server to save not even enough money to buy a starbucks coffee.

Re:Cool,

[Lucractius]

Ok... I dont know how to handle the awesomeness that I just read.

Other than to offer to help. In the very least I can test the hell out of it...

I have been thinking of ways to make a HTML 5 or other web based "X11 server" for a while. The thinking has only gotten as far as a rough map of the most effective ways to do it so far. (Java and Flash are both non-starters in my book)
Chrome + Native Client + websockets or inbuilt ssh tunnel over port 443 = most straitforward but a lot of work just to make an actual X11 server that still required lots of work building XDMP related stuff as well.
Javascript + Canvas + webserver & X11 on the remote 'terminal server' = more web based, probably more doable, definitely more flexible.
or
Javascript + HTML5 & SVG + special web X11 server = best approach in my mind. Probably hardest, definitely wins points for simplicity if done right.

The issue would be going from a crude web page based equivalent of X2VNC to something more advanced like using as much SVG as possible for window borders, etc, while rendering individual window updates to jpeg/png/webp/whatever, and sending them via something like websockets, while sending back keyboard & mouse inputs captured on the page to the server. No small feat.

Which way were you thinking of going with your plans for X11?

Re:Cool,

[ByOhTek]

Yes, because people only use the "major" options.

Re:Cool,

[Riskable]

The package comes with an interactive tutorial on how to embed Gate One into other applications. It's in the tests directory, "hello_embedded".

Also, to answer your question directly, there's an argument you can pass to GateOne.init(), autoConnectURL that does exactly what you want (specify a complete ssh:// url). There's lots of info on it in the developer docs in the JavaScript section (hint: there's a search function :).

Re:Cool,

[Riskable]

I was planning on using JavaScript + canvas with the Gate One server acting as a pseudo X11 server. You'd forward your DISPLAY just like normal but Gate One would intercept the protocol and translate it into something more efficient before sending to the client. SVG doesn't perform as well as canvas.

Of course, I'd do my best to make sure it is fast and completely transparent to the user.

First things first though... An authorization framework, shared bookmarks, terminal session sharing, and a special secret surprise that will hopefully be cool enough to make the news again.

Re:Cool,

[vux984]

Can you name a device with a robust html5 browser that doesn't have an SSL client?

Re:Cool,

[Lucractius]

I was fairly sure the best performance cross browser wise would be with canvas.

My motives for SVG were more compression & transform speed. Being able to do the Window Manager 'theme' stuff Motif/CDE/twm/etc, farmed out to the browsers CSS/XSLT, and any other tricks that can be performed using the SVG in order to avoid sending image data for performance. SVG is getting better with time, and I'll agree it has a long way to go compared to canvas, but at higher resolutions, it would have distinct advantages. I also wanted to avoid it feeling too much like web based vnc and browser side handling of 'window' objects via floating SVG elements seemed like the best way to approach at least a few aspects with my goal of letting the browser handle as much of the code as I could.

Nice feature list there and Btw... this is a sufficiently awesome thing, that I'm likely to become a paying customer and possibly commit back to the github where I can.

This is pretty neat, but...

[VortexCortex]

If I can run a browser, I can run a SSH client. Bonus: The stand alone terminal emulator / SSH client doesn't come with the attack surface of a web browser, or security vulnerability baggage of JavaScript's JITs (marking data as code, then running it).

I really want to like this, I'm just not finding any use cases for it that something like PUTTY wouldn't be better for. (Well, I did, but they were really freakin' out there edge cases.)

Re:This is pretty neat, but...

[vlm]

It seems to be more a competitor of ajaxterm than a competitor of putty.

ajaxterm occasionally "jams up" and certainly doesn't have all these features, so they have a market they can work.

Re:This is pretty neat, but...

[Hatta]

If I can run a browser, I can run a SSH client.

How do you run an SSH client on a kiosk?

Re:This is pretty neat, but...

[aaaaaaargh!]

If I can run a browser, I can run a SSH client.

How do you run an SSH client on a kiosk?

On the other hand, it is really not advisable to trust a web-browser based kiosk with important ssh login details.

Re:This is pretty neat, but...

[ByOhTek]

Earlier times with Windows Phone 7, and right now with Windows Phone 8 come to mind.

Also, if you find a site hosting it, that you can trust, it bypasses the issue of potential malware incursions into your mobile platform's app store.

And it provides you with one setup/config interface, regardless of platform.

There are conveniences/advantages to this setup.

Re:This is pretty neat, but...

[dyingtolive]

Not to mention that ajaxterm sort of makes you want to pull your nails out with pliers as an alternative. I've been running GateOne for quite a while now, and I'll be upgrading to this version this weekend.

Re:This is pretty neat, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

If I can run a browser, I can run a SSH client.

I really want to like this, I'm just not finding any use cases for it that something like PUTTY wouldn't be better for.

I figured this would be good for cases where it's inconvenient (or impossible) to install the tools of your choice. I can't see using it on my desktop, but it seems potentially useful if I'm elsewhere.

For example, let's say I'm on someone else's computer (or at the library, etc.) and want to log into my shell account, but ssh or putty wasn't installed. In that case, a web-based solution seems like it could be convenient.

Re:This is pretty neat, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

And that's why you pair it with one time passwords.

Re:This is pretty neat, but...

[blade8086]

which is why you use one time passwords and don't print anything sensitive to the terminal.

Re:This is pretty neat, but...

[icebraining]

There's also https://github.com/ghewgill/ssh-otp.

Re:This is pretty neat, but...

[gl4ss]

wp8 can run wp7 apps, so can user terminal emulator from there.

but there's plenty of free access computers littered around the world at airports, hotels, etc where you can't install a terminal emulator.

Yo dawg...

[mrjb]

I heard you liked browsing the web, so I put a browser in your browser so you can browse while you browse!

Re:Yo dawg...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yo dawg, I heard you like shitty meme's so I posted one.

Re:Yo dawg...

[Anonymous Coward]

I like browsing my companies unix WAN infrastructure with an editing environment enabled by default...

Re:Yo dawg...

[Anonymous Coward]

Must have been made by the guys behind emacs.

Re:Yo dawg...

[crywalt]

I have no points to mod this up, but I would if I could. +1 for browser recursion!

Re:Yo dawg...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, indeed you did. How ironic of you.

Not nerdy enough..

[Anonymous Coward]

to even know why I would want to run VIM in a browser

I guess I am not nerdy enough...

[freshmeathead]

I use various linux distros daily, but I guess I am not nerdy enough to know why I would want to run vim in a browser.

Re:I guess I am not nerdy enough...

[HaZardman27]

The only thing I can think of is that I'm working on someone else's computer and can't install anything locally, but even then this won't work because you still have to download it. I guess this is just a "because I can" sort of project.

Re:I guess I am not nerdy enough...

[vlm]

I use a free competitor called ajaxterm to get around firewall insanity. So if the local restaurant blocks all SSH connectivity as a hacking tool (idiots), in fact only lets thru 80 and 443, this is perfect. Well, if the target machine didn't have a web server on it I could run SSH on 443 and connect to it, but if the whole point of the machine is web serving then I can't very well remove the SSL web server and stuck sshd on port 443.

This is not a daily thing, but more an OMG emergency back door when all else fails thing. My advice is put it under a mysterious URL, its too easy to scan "whatever.com/ajaxterm" on a guess, and don't link to it.

I've also used it in presentations, all I need on the client machine connected to the projector is a standard web browser. No admin rights to install stuff, etc. Just go to this page.. which doesn't work... then ask why the heck they are using MSIE 5.0 or whatever in 2012.. etc. But it does work great with a "modern" "real" browser.

Re:I guess I am not nerdy enough...

[freshmeathead]

Ah... no one will let me use their computer :(

Re:I guess I am not nerdy enough...

[fm6]

Vim is just a demo. Lots of people run terminal apps every day, mostly to access legacy systems. Like any other application, a terminal is easier to deploy if it runs on the cloud.

Re:I guess I am not nerdy enough...

[norminator]

You don't download it on the client machine. You download and install it on the host machine. When you run it on the host, it runs a web server, which you then access from the client machine via the web browser.

So, assuming you already have it up and running on your server, all you need on your friends' computers is the web browser.

Re:I guess I am not nerdy enough...

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.rutschle.net/tech/sslh.shtml

Re:I guess I am not nerdy enough...

[blade8086]

nice troll! but you are TOTALLY WRONG:

I find that a terminal is easier to consume if it is purchased from a walled garden app store.

Thankfully terminals will be a thing of the past once we get WAYLAND on CHERRY FILLED DIAREAH os running MEOWCAT iTurd

Re:I guess I am not nerdy enough...

[Anonymous Coward]

I use various linux distros daily, but I guess I am not nerdy enough to know why I would want to run vim in a browser.

To update your c.v. before you are laid-off during the next round of "restructuring" maybe? Seriously, I use GateOne to remotely manage my GNU/Linux servers without the necessity of installing an SSH client on any desktop/notebook computer or on my tablet computer. Plus I can choose a non-standard port for inbound connections to GateOne and leave the default port 22 enabled for the servers on my internal network. I use the GateOne VM as a jumping off point to my internal network all protected by the SSL protocol. You have no idea how convenient being able to edit a configuration file with vi/vim is when you are a six-hour drive from the server.

Re:I guess I am not nerdy enough...

[Anonymous Coward]

The only thing I can think of is that I'm working on someone else's computer and can't install anything locally, but even then this won't work because you still have to download it. I guess this is just a "because I can" sort of project.

Run GateOne on the remote server accessible via web browser not on your local desktop/notebook computer. Has Microsoft finally succeeded in turning /. into a cesspool for the technologically illiterate? Where are all my *nix geeks?

Re:I guess I am not nerdy enough...

[fm6]

How old are you? Does your mother know you're up this late?

Re:I guess I am not nerdy enough...

[vlm]

Thats a very good idea, thank you AC

putty replacement?

[Janek Kozicki]

I guess that Gate One is windows-only, since on other OSes you have terminals by default. And on windows everyone that I know is using putty. So I wonder - is that going to be putty replacement, or too much hassle to get it to work?

Re:putty replacement?

[Riskable]

Why would Gate One be Windows-only? It runs in a browser.

Don't think, "PuTTY replacement" or, "terminal replacement." Think, "I can use this from anywhere without having to install anything" or, "this could be embedded into an administration interface to provide a command line where previously there was none."

Though to be honest my end-goal with Gate One is to make it the best terminal emulator (and SSH client) ever. We've only begun to explore what's possible when you combine a terminal with capabilities of the browser (HTML5, specifically).

Re:putty replacement?

[Kevin Stevens]

No, its not. It runs in a browser and is thus cross platform. The main point is that the ssh session runs on the server side, so you are essentially tunneling ssh through http. Very nice if you need ssh access in an environment that won't let you ssh out of the network.

Re:putty replacement?

[Janek Kozicki]

Why would Gate One be Windows-only? It runs in a browser.

Don't think, "PuTTY replacement" or, "terminal replacement." Think, "I can use this from anywhere without having to install anything" or, "this could be embedded into an administration interface to provide a command line where previously there was none."

Though to be honest my end-goal with Gate One is to make it the best terminal emulator (and SSH client) ever. We've only begun to explore what's possible when you combine a terminal with capabilities of the browser (HTML5, specifically).

ok. So how do you solve keyboard support on tablets? Think: arrows, pg-up/pg-down, special characters

major hindrance is that tablets don't have arrows on their "keyboards"

Re:putty replacement?

[John Hasler]

> The main point is that the ssh session runs on the server
> side, so you are essentially tunneling ssh through http.

So the session is encrypted and authenticated between the browser and the server?

Re:putty replacement?

[Riskable]

Oh the pain of software keyboards! Believe me, it drives me crazy. Gate One will work in Mobile Firefox and Chrome for Android using a software keyboard but not very well. You're much better off using a hardware keyboard.

Having said that, here's how it currently works in Gate One with software keyboards: There's an invisible input element on the page that gets focus when you load the page or tap somewhere. When that happens the software keyboard comes up and you can enter your keystrokes. However, whenever you tap "go" the input element loses focus! This will drive you crazy. I have opened bugs for both Chrome and Firefox to get a workaround of some sort.

I am planning on writing a thin "native" client of sorts to use Gate One on mobile devices (probably using PhoneGap) just for the sole purpose of getting control over the software keyboard (make it stay open!).

Re:putty replacement?

[Janek Kozicki]

Does that mean, that in the browser window upper half of the screen will be a terminal, and bottom half will be a full keyboard - both embedded into the window? By this way you will not use the inferior tablet's keyboard, so this might work....

Re:putty replacement?

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Is the terminal parsing done server-side? That is, the client is served HTML to make things look right, but all of the vt10x escape codes are parsed on the server?

(I'm looking for a client-side js library that does actual vt100 parsing.)

Re:putty replacement?

[greg1104]

There are multiple solutions already available for Web-based SSH. GateOne says it needs a Python app installed on the server to support the tunnel. If that's hosted on their servers and this gets popular, expect that site to get blocked at the same sort of shops that block ssh. The main claims they seem to be making are for a higher quality of terminal emulation than the other ways around this issue that already exist.

Re:putty replacement?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't understand what this is. Why is there a demo if this is open source? Where is the link to the thing that I download to start using it in a browser? I went to the downloads page and it has links to linux installs. Installs of what? The homepage makes clear that this is not a browser plugin. So what is this? What do I have to do to use it?

Re:putty replacement?

[Kevin Stevens]

Yeah there are. Most are pretty crappy. GateOne just performs far better, to the point where you can actually use it for useful work. I used to use ajaxterm, it worked, but had weird bugs. Later I moved to webshell, which was a big improvement. GateOne is an improvement further still. I use this on my personal server, so unless they are inspecting packets to see that this is an app, which currently my very paranoid company does not do, this won't get blocked.

Re:putty replacement?

[Kevin Stevens]

It runs over https. For most users like myself, its about access, not security.

Re:putty replacement?

[Riskable]

Yes, the terminal emulator in Gate One is server-side (terminal.py). It converts the terminal's screen to HTML before sending it to the client. Actually, it only sends lines to the client that have been updated but that part is handled separate from the terminal emulator.

There's actually a pretty good overview of the differences between server and client-side terminal emulation here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web-based_SSH

Re:putty replacement?

[Riskable]

Just an FYI: You can't inspect SSL packets without a MitM attack. Some proxies support this (Blue Coat) but none of them work with WebSockets. So as it stands right now it is impossible to sniff your Gate One session unless you're using a very weak SSL certificate.

Whoever is looking at your Gate One traffic in a sniffer will only see a destination and a source IP. They won't even see the URLs you're hitting.

Re:putty replacement?

[Tarlus]

If you have to do work that requires the use of a terminal, then a tablet is probably the wrong thing to be carrying around.

Re:putty replacement?

[Kevin Stevens]

Very good to know. Thanks!

Re:putty replacement?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have to do work that requires the use of a terminal, then a tablet is probably the wrong thing to be carrying around.

Not if you use a physical keyboard with the tablet. :) They make very portable Bluetooth keyboards these days.

Re:putty replacement?

[oreaq]

For Android there is Hacker's Keyboard which gives you arrow keys, CTRL, TAB, etc. I assume there are similar apps for iOS.

Not in the browser?

[Anonymous Coward]

Last I checked out Gate, it was really a python-based server of some sort that was accessed via the browser, not run inside the browser. Not as exciting as it first appeared. Is that still the case? I mean, if you have a python installation with all the libraries supporting SSL, HTTP, etc, is it surprising that you get an ssh client? The pseudo-terminal is in the browser, but all the ssh client part is in the python-based server.

Re:Not in the browser?

[corychristison]

Yes. Still the same.

I remember a few months ago that booted a linux kernel in Javascript.... now THAT was impressive. Didn't have network access when I last looked at it.

I am sure there are better terminal emulators out there for in browser administration, because I've seen them in many VPS control panels... although I've never furtherem or looked unto them further.

Re:Not in the browser?

[Giloo]

M. Bellard's Javascript PC Emulator ?

There is an X11 server written in Java...

[PaulBu]

... I think made by Citrix, and it "runs" in your browser, but I would not really recommend it to anyone. Total steaming POS...

The maskhouse we deal with uses(d) that for customers to verify that the layers are what they expect. The program they run on the other end is something from Apollo workstations era, window manager in that session was TWM (we are talking now, a decade into 21st centiry! :) ), and it was slower than when I first tried running X over dial-up modem in 90s, without compression... ;-)

So, I am not having high hopes about useability of X11-over-HTTP, but who knows...

Vim demo was impressive through!

Paul B.

Define "your company"

[tepples]

Basically, it's supposed to be a method for violating your company's IT policies. Got it.

By "your company", do you refer to the owner of the device that you're using, such as your employer, or the manufacturer of the device that you purchased, such as Apple or Microsoft?

Re:Define "your company"

[Anonymous Coward]

Please tell me this question is being sarcastic or "ironic " and that you aren't that stupid.

Re:Define "your company"

[Compaqt]

The former not the latter. I'd say you have every right to run whatever you want on a device you bought (or your company bought, if it lets you run ssh, which it probably would).

However, there are plenty of iOS and Android SSH apps, so again, the question remains.

Re:Define "your company"

[tepples]

In the past, people have recommended SSH and VNC clients as a workaround to run applications that Apple disapproves on a remote server and display them on an iPad. I just fear what will happen should reliance on remote desktop to work around Apple's policy becomes more widespread.

On Android I had to install ConnectBot

[tepples]

on other OSes you have terminals by default

On Android I had to install ConnectBot to get an SSH client. Or were you thinking only of desktop PC operating systems?

Re:On Android I had to install ConnectBot

[drinkypoo]

Even desktop operating systems are a mixed bag. Most users don't get an ssh client with their operating system.

Speaking of connectbot, I complained previously about it not working on my rooted Nook Simple Touch. It does now. I used a different root method this time, but I imagine it's also had updates in the interim.

Also look at shellinaboxd

[Anonymous Coward]

http://code.google.com/p/shellinabox/

very cool

[unique_parrot]

Looks very promising, localised characters working excellent in vim !
Don't know if i would allow portscan.
Would like to have x11 too :)

Re:very cool

[bluefoxlucid]

Can't manage to get it to execute shell stuff, trying to make vm :read !:(){ :|:; }

Re:very cool

[Riskable]

That's because the demo is inside of a chroot jail and the user it runs as only has read-only access to its home directory. Also, the version of vim running is actually rvim which doesn't let you execute shell commands (for good reason).

If you figure out a way to break out of the jail let me know so I can close that hole! ;)

Re:very cool

[bluefoxlucid]

check out /tmp and also if you did execute a shell command the above would blow the machine out, chroot jail or not :)

The terminal app is kewl, but...

[fm6]

... not something I'd ditch SSH for. The implementation is impressive, though. I'd encourage these guys to work on creating more web-based apps and frameworks,.

WHOA

[denmarkw00t]

Lynx in a browser? Wait, isn't that like having a Hot Wheel in a Ferrari?

Re:Oh Please!

[menno_h]

The editor wars came to a standstill in the 90's! Why did you have to break the ceasefire?
But if we're flaming anyway, I would like to remind you that Emacs Makes Any Computer Slow and that it is a very nice operating system; it just lacks a text editor (but it's still infinitely better than nano or pico or notepad).

And real men use ed!

Pentadactyl

[DriedClexler]

So ... like Pentadactyl, Vimperator, and Vimium then?

WOW!

[ddt]

This is incredible! It's just like a terminal window, but SLOWER! Want!

Re:WOW!

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like most fscking web apps are far slower, clunkier and much less powerful than a decent local application. Yet onwards we march into the fabulous world of zero privacy walled gardens, awkward and unergonomic touch interfaces and crap-apps.

Nano is all that?

[Fubari]

So nano is an open source rewrite of pico; interesting to see nano has some fans (I'm guessing Pico isn't used so much in 2012).
From wikipedia:

nano implements some features that Pico lacks, including colored text, regular expression search and replace, smooth scrolling, multiple buffers, rebindable key support, and (experimental) undoing and redoing of edit changes.

I poked around nano's website and it seems pretty capable.
It sounds like nano does everything you need, so there is no reason to learn about other editors.
I have fond memories of pine and pico; maybe I will look at nano one of these days.

fwiw, I find some powertools worth learning to use well even if they have a non-easy learning curve (sed comes to mind). This also applies to text editors; they're just tools.
As for "1975 wants vi back", I actually get a lot of mileage from vim which is a bit closer to nano's era.
nano: born 1999 as TIP, inspired by pico.
(btw, the last item on the nano news page is from 2009: "Now on Twitter and Facebook and Happy 10th Birthday nano". Is nano under active development these days?)
vim:born 1988, released 1991 (initially for amiga, much more widespread now), inspired by vi (note I do feel sorry for anyone stuck using "classic vi" in the same way I'd feel sorry for anyone stuck with edlin).
(side note: vi-style learning curve sucks. My first two weeks were Painful, but now that I have some skill (muscle memory) with the keys I find it very effective. Kind of like how touch-typing is harder to learn than "hunt & peck" but it is still well worthwhile to learn how to touch-type; it pays dividends. Most of vi-style power (for me) comes from the fast navigation+editing commands that are tied to a rather terse (and admittedly cryptic) "shorthand" language of key combinations... I remember actually being surprised at how clunky arrow key + mouse navigation felt when I first used conventional editors after driving vi-style for a while.)
One of the things I like about having learned Vim is it will be available pretty much wherever I might need to work: here are some of the targets from from wikipedia's vim page (* indicates ports I have used):

AmigaOS (the initial target platform), DOS, Microsoft Windows 95/*98/Me/*NT/*2000/*XP/*Server 2003/*Vista/*Server 2008/*7, IBM OS/2 and OS/390, OpenVMS, QNX, *Unix, *Linux, BSD, and Mac OS. Also, Vim is shipped with every copy of Apple Mac OS X. Independent ports of Vim are available both for Android and iOS.

(I've also found vim for aix; useful if one needs to spend time there.) Note that vim seems pretty consistently fully featured on the various platforms I've used it on (*'s above).
By comparison, nano seems pretty content to excel in linux distributions (redhat & debian).
And maybe, possibly, kind of sort of windows: from the nano faq, 3.9 How about in Win32

We're still working on documentation for enabling synax highlighting on Win32; please bear with us. Note that the nano.rc file must remain Unix formatted in order for nano to understand it. In other words, you should use probably only use nano to edit its config file. Other programs like Wordpad and Notepad will either convert the file to DOS format when saving, and the latter does not even properly read Unix-formatted files to begin with.

*shrug* I'm glad nano is working for you in the land of the modern linux desktop.

As for emacs: I sincerely believe that emacs users enjoy the capabilities they find; I may find a need for something emacs does well these days. I've never heard anyone say "Yeah,

Re:Nano is all that?

[girlinatrainingbra]

Emacs also good for prototyping postscript pages and running postscript code while inside emacs with postscript mode inserting macros/subroutines/font selections as needed; c-code writing; lisp macro but also writing lisp code and eval-ing it without leaving the editor.

Nano is on knoppix live-boot stuff and that's where i play with it. Didn't know about pico... Of course, go older and use "ed" or "cat >" into files too, eh?

Re:Nano is all that?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ugh. Edlin...

Wait a sec

[StripedCow]

AFAIK, port 22 (ssh) is not allowed to be accessed from within a browser. This means that everything you do must go through a server, which means, big brother may be watching you, completely defeating the purpose of ssh. Please tell me I am wrong.

Re:Wait a sec

[Anonymous Coward]

What Big Brother? You install GateOne on your own hardware and then from a web browser you can access that server (GateOne) or any other SSH-enabled server via web browser. You can access the servers on the local network or from outside the network if the appropriate ports are open and forwarding rules enabled. There is no Big Brother watching you unless you are looking in a mirror while using GateOne. ;)

surface

[tehlinux]

This is just what my Surface needed!

Microsoft counters ...

[PPH]

... with EDLIN support for IE.

Solution in search of a problem but fits the plan

[Anonymous Coward]

Since a number of people have posted saying this is interesting but solves nothing, why encourage development? A lot of companies (like Google) want *everything* in that fscking slow, resource-greedy, bloated application called the browser. Browser bloat serves manufacturers since we keep buying more powerful machines to run fatter browsers. They want every damn other thing as an app and web service running in the browser and would like to see traditional local user-facing applications die altogether. All sold as "cloud" hype. While there are a few real benefits to users with this, it's also all part of the plan to force our activity through services like Google and turn computers into spyware and dumb terminals. That enables tracking and monetization and already forces us into walled gardens on mobile devices. They want the walled garden model for everything. Is developing these kinds of uses and turning the browser into an operating system a potential hole in the side of privacy and freedom?

Great for support

[brunes69]

As someone who works on a product where support people routinely have to use remote-desktop with a customer and get them to SSH into systems, this seems like it might be a huge boon, since not all customers have SSH clients pre-installed.

But does it run in Lynx?

[SavvyPlayer]

To complete the circle, we really need the ability to run this within Lynx, from within Emacs. Imagine the possibilities!

emacs: cool Re:Nano is all that?

[Fubari]

r.e. emacs capabilities - cool, it does sound useful. Thanks.
Learning clojure might be enough to nudge me into emacs land.

Fsck you all . I use joe.

[Anonymous Coward]

The comands are built in. I am too busy to learn or remember the gnarled syntax for emacs, or vi.
  Isn't emacs the HURD kernel in the wild.