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Show HN: Termbox – Launch a Linux terminal with two clicks
- jgillich 10y agoTermbox is somewhat similar to the recently announced dply.co, but I think our approach is much better for the following reasons: * The interface is super streamlined. Open the page, confirm captcha, click launch - boom, you got a terminal. The planned SSH support will be similar to that - no web page, just do ssh root@ubuntu.termbox.io and you get logged in to a Ubuntu box. * We use VM based containers (hypercontainer.io) and not full VMs, so startup is very fast and instances are super cheap. 2 hours of the 512MB DigitalOcean server cost $0.014, 2 hours of a 512MB Termbox instance currently cost us around $0.0001 * Because our instances are so cheap, we do not impose any limits on the amount of boxes you can create. Just leave them behind, they will be cleaned up automatically.
- zlatan_todoric 10y agoServer capacity reached , please try again later :) Tried the Debian instance
- webtechgal 10y agoSame here, on CentOS 7.
- Matt3o12_ 10y agoWhat is the difference begeeen docker, a traditional VM and hypercontainer? And what are the trade off of hypercontainer?
- jgillich 10y agoThere's a comparison table here: https://hypercontainer.io/why-hyper.html https://hypercontainer.io/why-hyper.html
- diggan 10y agoMakes for a suspicious comparison when both the two other options, have no features that hyper doesn't or is better. I understand that this comparison comes from you, and it's not easy being completely fair when doing a comparison, but I can't find anywhere anything against using Hyper or even any tradeoffs.
- jgillich 10y agoI'm not involved with Hyper/HyperContainer, I'm just a user and recently started contributing. I've had hyperd silently crashing once, and the API and tooling is a bit rough, but these things can be fixed. No complaints so far from a purely architectural viewpoint.
- bluesign 10y agoHow will you prevent abuse with SSH method?
- nkkollaw 10y agoWhy do you publicize it as 2 clicks? It's 1 click. Ubuntu is selected by default. Captcha doesn't count as click. I'd market it as Terminal in 1 click.
- diggan 10y ago> Captcha doesn't count as click Eh, why not? Can you skip the captcha somehow?
- deadmik3 10y agoYeah my first thought was "this took 3 clicks" edit: maybe that's why they market it as "2 clicks"... since ubuntu is selected by default and captcha definitely counts as a click
- butz 10y agoIt could be done if author implements Invisible reCaptcha.
- jgillich 10y agoI will do that the day it becomes publicly available, but no sooner because I'm serious about Termbox being open source.
- Cyclenerd 10y agoThank you so much! For me a great possibility to test my post-install script! https://github.com/Cyclenerd/postinstall https://github.com/Cyclenerd/postinstall
- Hates_ 10y agoStupid question maybe, but what would the use case for something like this be? Can I run a server on it?
- moondev 10y agoover capacity. anyone have a screenshot for what the terminal looks like? Is there a countdown timer?
- jgillich 10y agoWelp, I've temporarily reduced the duration to 1h, should free up some slots. Here's a screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/UsRgXhD.png http://i.imgur.com/UsRgXhD.png
- mijoharas 10y agoAfter I got past the "over capacity" error I got to a screen like the above, but without the terminal. Javascript error: index.js:2371 Uncaught TypeError: this.base.append is not a function
- zydeco 10y agoAfter getting an over capacity error, you always get a captcha verification error and have to reload the page
- nawtacawp 10y agoover capacity and I get a captcha error when trying to select a different server. I have to reload the page -- never got to a terminal.
- rocketpastsix 10y agoSeems to be no way to go back up the terminal, so if you run something like grep --help, you only get the bottom portion of the help section rather then the whole thing.
- jgillich 10y agoIt uses tmux for session management, so you can press Ctrl+b and [ to scroll with the arrow keys and page up/down. But this is definitely something I will try to fix soon.
- jgillich 10y agoThe server has limited resources of 32GB RAM, so sorry if you're not getting in. The good news is that you can install it on your own hardware, it's all open source: https://github.com/termbox/termbox https://github.com/termbox/termbox
- aroch 10y agoProbably want to disable the tmux keybinding for detach
- jswrenn 10y agoFYI: This has a name clash with a fairly popular TUI library: https://github.com/nsf/termbox https://github.com/nsf/termbox
- JayOtter 10y agoWhich is a really good, actively maintained library. Shameless plug for the game engine I wrote using it: https://github.com/JoelOtter/termloop https://github.com/JoelOtter/termloop
- bitwize 10y agouhhhhhh I can launch a Linux terminal with Super+Enter. (I run i3)
- Skunkleton 10y agodid you even click the link?
- beshrkayali 10y agoCaptcha doesn't reset after first error message about server capacity, so when you click launch again it says captcha is wrong.
- stonewhite 10y agoConsidering the captcha it actually takes 3 clicks to launch
- koolba 10y ago> Considering the captcha it actually takes 3 clicks to launch More like ten. Six for the captcha choices, one to submit the captcha, one to pick the server type, one to submit and get a "Server capacity reached, please try again later", and finally one to close the browser tab.
- jgillich 10y agoI'm not going to rent a $500 server just to handle the HN traffic spike, sorry. Capacity will be expanded over time, but only after the service pays for itself (either through ads or paid features).
- koolba 10y agoNo worries. I'm looking forward to trying it out again after things quiet down a bit. Fyi, it doesn't have to be a $500/mo server permanently either. Depending on where your hosting the backend, you could scale it up temporarily and then scale it back down when things quiet down. $500/mo is approx $16/day which could be well worth it for a day while enjoying an HN-driven bump.
- jgillich 10y agoNot if you use the preselected Ubuntu. ;)
- diggan 10y agoSlightly off-topic but kind of not. Through the website, I found https://hypercontainer.io/ https://hypercontainer.io/ which seems to fit really good for a use-case of mine. However, it's the first time I see HyperContainer. Anyone have anything good/bad to say about it? The value proposition seems really attractive "Fast as Container" + "Isolated by VM" but can't find anything about the tradeoffs so would love someone who tried it to write about their experience.
- quiezio 10y agodo you plan to have an API to create boxes and to run some predefined scripts on launch?
- fiatjaf 10y agoterminal.com all over again? Great idea, closed in 6 months.
- Retr0spectrum 10y agoIt was working for a bit, and then the terminal went blank with: lost server Edit: a refresh fixed it, but I lost my current shell session
- fil_a_del_fee_a 10y agoI actually like it. I think it is well implemented and can be used to play around on command line with different flavors of linux. Well done!
- equalunique 10y ago[ 0.182343] smpboot: CPU0: Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU C2750 @ 2.40GHz (family: 0x6, model: 0x4d, stepping: 0x8) Neat to see one of these connected to the internet serving a production service! I also have a C2750 system.
- coverband 10y agoIt may be the HN effect, but after opening an Ubuntu session and a vi console, it started refreshing constantly and telling me: STATUS Reconnecting Will need to try again when the traffic slows down...
- mdrzn 10y agoThis seems cool, but I don't know what to do with it, apart from sshing into my own server if I'm on a PC that doesn't have a ssh client on it. Just remember to use 2FA.
- daph 10y agoIf you do ctrl-b d to disconnect from tmux, it pretty much leaves the server useless.
- aub3bhat 10y agoI wonder if this can be used to hide malicious activity or even as a form of honeypot. Its simple to create such service then post/advertise on reddit, and simply monitor all commands the users execute. Soon you will have a trove of all sort of malicious scripts used for crawling, automated purchasing, phishing, spamming etc. You can also use the service yourself to get lost in the crowd.