[HN Gopher] GoTTY - Share your terminal as a web application
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       GoTTY - Share your terminal as a web application
        
       Author : thunderbong
       Score  : 90 points
       Date   : 2021-05-29 12:42 UTC (10 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | xmichael0 wrote:
       | I am sure there is one as the project looks very well done and
       | comprehensive, but I'm sorry, I don't quite understand the use
       | case for this? Where would one use this instead of SSH or even
       | SSH over a http proxy?
        
         | qbasic_forever wrote:
         | This is perfect for integrating into a web app behind a proxy
         | that adds authentication, SSL, etc. Put it on a small cloud
         | instance, add your favorite text editor, install all your
         | development CLI tools and you've got a completely productive
         | and 100% mobile development environment for example. You could
         | load it up on a tablet while lounging in the sun and get real
         | work done.
        
           | dogma1138 wrote:
           | Until something breaks and you need to SSH into the server
           | from your tablet which you can do anyhow.
        
         | pacifika wrote:
         | Seems useful for helping a colleague on troubleshooting cli
         | related tasks?
        
         | Johnbot wrote:
         | I've been using it for a few months to host a few terminal
         | based games, and for that it has worked very well. I can also
         | imagine it being useful for quickly throwing up a status page
         | using top or whatever other tool you want.
        
         | nexuist wrote:
         | Web browsers are available on practically every PC but SSH
         | clients less so (especially on older Windows, I think Windows
         | 10 has one now but still). This seems like a great way to check
         | in on long running tasks from wherever you are (e.g. on a
         | mobile phone or hotel computer), and being able to disable
         | input means you don't have to worry too much about someone
         | finding the URL and running malicious commands.
        
       | noproto wrote:
       | I spent a weekend recently comparing GoTTY to similar solutions
       | and GoTTY/ttyd (the C port) are the best projects. Ultimately, I
       | chose ttyd (https://github.com/tsl0922/ttyd), because the main
       | GoTTY project was abandoned 4 years ago. ttyd works very well for
       | my use case, which is sharing a server to test some experimental
       | security software. So far I've gotten thousands of more attempts
       | by running a webserver than sharing SSH credentials. If you'd
       | like to try the server, it's here:
       | http://challenge.whitebeamsec.com/. The font/style are all
       | configurable. The only downside is mobile browsers have
       | difficulty typing.
        
         | dsyrk wrote:
         | can you explain the challenge. definitely useful pointer to
         | ttyd. thank you
        
           | noproto wrote:
           | Yea, sure. It's a server provided for security researchers.
           | The challenge is to run any program we haven't allowed from
           | the root shell. It's been defeated and patched 3 times over
           | the past 2 years. You can get the list of allowed programs by
           | running `whitebeam --list whitelist | grep Executable`. The
           | details (and bounties) are listed here: https://github.com/Wh
           | iteBeamSec/WhiteBeam/blob/master/SECURI...
           | 
           | Unlike the challenge system, we also run some honeypots that
           | record attempts. That way it's easy for both whitehats and
           | blackhats to contribute to the overall QA testing.
        
       | thebruce87m wrote:
       | I did some research a short while ago but I've forgotten it all -
       | but does too or any like it do persistence? I.e. I can close the
       | window and reopen and see the same stuff that was just there?
       | 
       | My use case is starting long running processes - namely machine
       | learning instances and having multiple people monitor through a
       | browser and be able to close/reopen the window to check progress.
       | 
       | I do this currently using a jupyter notebook terminal but I'd
       | like to not use jupyter notebooks at all if possible.
       | 
       | Screen / tmux etc is just too big a barrier for this
       | unfortunately.
        
       | lefrenchy wrote:
       | This is really cool! It doesn't have much of a use case for me I
       | don't think, but regardless I find it super awesome. Nice work!
        
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       (page generated 2021-05-29 23:01 UTC)