6 ms·

Sshtalk: An SSH-based chat made in assembler

96 points by mabynogy 9y ago

NickBusey 9y ago
I love how you can SSH to a server and be presented with a login / registration screen. I would love to adapt this for use with an open source project I'm making, but don't think I have the fortitude for assembly. Anyone have any tips on how something like this is achievable using a more modern/approachable tooling stack?
- steventhedev 9y ago
  If golang is your thing, take a look at this[0] or that[1]. You can probably find similar ones with some quick research. The neat part is that you can easily pull down someone's github keys and automatically authenticate them against that identity. You can follow up with an email/password registration as a backup identity provider, if you really want to push the envelope (and save the public key for future automatic authentication). Of course, if you're just looking to hack something together quickly, you can simply force a specific command to be run. [0]: https://github.com/shazow/ssh-chat https://github.com/shazow/ssh-chat [1]: https://github.com/gliderlabs/ssh https://github.com/gliderlabs/ssh
  - NickBusey 9y ago
    Perfect, golang definitely is my thing, I've been using that to build my cli tool. Thanks!
  - rainingmonkey 9y ago
    EinChan is an SSH BBS which works like this; you log in as the einchan user and are dropped straight into the BBS software. try ssh einchan@einchan.god.jp, password: ein
- c22 9y ago
  I built one in Python awhile ago on a lark: https://github.com/kryptographik/ShuSSH https://github.com/kryptographik/ShuSSH
- kpcyrd 9y ago
  If you want to do this the traditional way, you would setup a user, then properly secure it (you might end up becoming a proxy) and then set a ForceCommand. After that, verify your config works, then set the password for that user to an empty password. After that, allow empty passwords on your ssh config so you can ssh to this user without any authentication. This is how eg anoncvs works. After that point, it's just a matter of writing the application you want to run, with stdio being connected to your user.
exabrial 9y ago
anyone have a server setup anywhere? EDIT: RTFA "ssh 2ton.com.au" EDIT AGAIN: Anyone have a room name to join?
- icebraining 9y ago
  I had to run "ssh -oCiphers=+aes256-cbc 2ton.com.au", seems like it's disabled by default in my version (OpenSSH_7.6p1 Debian-2).
- jstanley 9y ago
  Try the "hn" room
jasonjayr 9y ago
A growing number of users are showing up in the room named "hn", if you want to see it with multiple users ...
ajross 9y ago
Seems cute. Might be a fun gadget to host on a Pi or whatnot. > Hand-written in x86_64 assembly language Oh. Not sure if cross-internet capable communication tools constitutes the "worst" example of hand written assembly, exactly, but... yeah, it has to be up there. I'm sure it was fun to hack, though.
- srett 9y ago
  The only thing really worse there is that the number of people who could audit the code is much smaller. That guy wrote a whole SSL library in assember, so he probably didn't just finish some assembler tutorial and decided this was a good first lil project. Assember is usually just considered bad/dangerous by people who have no clue about it and consider it something magical. It's not. At least not significantly more dangerous than C, which is still the language the most fundamental components of everyday computing are based on.
  - ajross 9y ago
    No, I think portability is definitely the worst thing. It's a communication tool. It's perfectly reasonable to want to run this on your Pi or your phone or in your browser or your IoT device of the week. And you can't because of an implementation choice. I'm certainly not afraid of machine code, I actually get paid to write it. But this just isn't a good choice technically. Though it's impressive and like I said was surely a lot of fun and worth showing off.
    - srett 9y ago
      Ah yes, I'm probably too focused on just x86 desktop/server with my everyday work that this didn't even occur to me, so I assumed you were meaning to refer to maintainability/security.
  - qubex 9y ago
    This is some bloke's project and he decided to code it in the tool he was either most comfortable with or wanted to glean exercise on. If you want to take inspiration from his work and write an analogous program in ARM assembler for the amusement of running it on whichever device most amuses you, you're free to read his code, learn from it, and then go off to re-implement it in a steam-powered balanced-ternary analytical engine, if you so please.
gbacon 9y ago
Why implement it in assembly language?
- ihattendorf 9y ago
  Why not?
  - magnetic 9y ago
    Because it limits the amount of people who can audit the code, contribute to it, or just use it?
- Buttes 9y ago
  For fun.
oliv__ 9y ago
Was fun while it lasted... > ssh: connect to host 2ton.com.au port 22: Connection refused
warent 9y ago
Well I think I was banned from the server 2ton.com.au. Not sure why but it was fun while it lasted. sshtalk is a pretty cool utility!
- oliv__ 9y ago
  This whole conversation was getting a little out of hand, maybe the admin banned all users in the room?
  - kindfellow92 9y ago
    LOL eigenmachter here. Pouring one out for john2 and his gf
    - sourbloom 9y ago
      I leave for 10 minutes to get lunch, and everything blows up? Too bad. This makes me want to host my own instance now. EDIT: Don't think it was banning, I can't hit the server from anywhere now. EDIT2: Why not. Give this a shot: ssh human.org.in -p 4001 Meet in the room "test".
      - warent 9y ago
        If you make one, post it here! I'll join
        oliv__ 9y ago
        Same here
      - kindfellow92 9y ago
        Ditto, y’all were a good crowd
      - oliv__ 9y ago
        It's down now... :(

96 points by mabynogy 9y ago

I love how you can SSH to a server and be presented with a login / registration screen. I would love to adapt this for use with an open source project I'm making, but don't think I have the fortitude for assembly. Anyone have any tips on how something like this is achievable using a more modern/approachable tooling stack?

steventhedev 9y ago
If golang is your thing, take a look at this[0] or that[1]. You can probably find similar ones with some quick research. The neat part is that you can easily pull down someone's github keys and automatically authenticate them against that identity. You can follow up with an email/password registration as a backup identity provider, if you really want to push the envelope (and save the public key for future automatic authentication). Of course, if you're just looking to hack something together quickly, you can simply force a specific command to be run. [0]: https://github.com/shazow/ssh-chat https://github.com/shazow/ssh-chat [1]: https://github.com/gliderlabs/ssh https://github.com/gliderlabs/ssh
- NickBusey 9y ago
  Perfect, golang definitely is my thing, I've been using that to build my cli tool. Thanks!
- rainingmonkey 9y ago
  EinChan is an SSH BBS which works like this; you log in as the einchan user and are dropped straight into the BBS software. try ssh einchan@einchan.god.jp, password: ein
c22 9y ago
I built one in Python awhile ago on a lark: https://github.com/kryptographik/ShuSSH https://github.com/kryptographik/ShuSSH
kpcyrd 9y ago
If you want to do this the traditional way, you would setup a user, then properly secure it (you might end up becoming a proxy) and then set a ForceCommand. After that, verify your config works, then set the password for that user to an empty password. After that, allow empty passwords on your ssh config so you can ssh to this user without any authentication. This is how eg anoncvs works. After that point, it's just a matter of writing the application you want to run, with stdio being connected to your user.

exabrial 9y ago

anyone have a server setup anywhere? EDIT: RTFA "ssh 2ton.com.au" EDIT AGAIN: Anyone have a room name to join?

icebraining 9y ago
I had to run "ssh -oCiphers=+aes256-cbc 2ton.com.au", seems like it's disabled by default in my version (OpenSSH_7.6p1 Debian-2).
jstanley 9y ago
Try the "hn" room

jasonjayr 9y ago

A growing number of users are showing up in the room named "hn", if you want to see it with multiple users ...

ajross 9y ago

Seems cute. Might be a fun gadget to host on a Pi or whatnot. > Hand-written in x86_64 assembly language Oh. Not sure if cross-internet capable communication tools constitutes the "worst" example of hand written assembly, exactly, but... yeah, it has to be up there. I'm sure it was fun to hack, though.

srett 9y ago
The only thing really worse there is that the number of people who could audit the code is much smaller. That guy wrote a whole SSL library in assember, so he probably didn't just finish some assembler tutorial and decided this was a good first lil project. Assember is usually just considered bad/dangerous by people who have no clue about it and consider it something magical. It's not. At least not significantly more dangerous than C, which is still the language the most fundamental components of everyday computing are based on.
- ajross 9y ago
  No, I think portability is definitely the worst thing. It's a communication tool. It's perfectly reasonable to want to run this on your Pi or your phone or in your browser or your IoT device of the week. And you can't because of an implementation choice. I'm certainly not afraid of machine code, I actually get paid to write it. But this just isn't a good choice technically. Though it's impressive and like I said was surely a lot of fun and worth showing off.
  - srett 9y ago
    Ah yes, I'm probably too focused on just x86 desktop/server with my everyday work that this didn't even occur to me, so I assumed you were meaning to refer to maintainability/security.
- qubex 9y ago
  This is some bloke's project and he decided to code it in the tool he was either most comfortable with or wanted to glean exercise on. If you want to take inspiration from his work and write an analogous program in ARM assembler for the amusement of running it on whichever device most amuses you, you're free to read his code, learn from it, and then go off to re-implement it in a steam-powered balanced-ternary analytical engine, if you so please.

gbacon 9y ago

Why implement it in assembly language?

ihattendorf 9y ago
Why not?
- magnetic 9y ago
  Because it limits the amount of people who can audit the code, contribute to it, or just use it?
Buttes 9y ago
For fun.

oliv__ 9y ago

Was fun while it lasted... > ssh: connect to host 2ton.com.au port 22: Connection refused

warent 9y ago

Well I think I was banned from the server 2ton.com.au. Not sure why but it was fun while it lasted. sshtalk is a pretty cool utility!

oliv__ 9y ago
This whole conversation was getting a little out of hand, maybe the admin banned all users in the room?
- kindfellow92 9y ago
  LOL eigenmachter here. Pouring one out for john2 and his gf
  - sourbloom 9y ago
    I leave for 10 minutes to get lunch, and everything blows up? Too bad. This makes me want to host my own instance now. EDIT: Don't think it was banning, I can't hit the server from anywhere now. EDIT2: Why not. Give this a shot: ssh human.org.in -p 4001 Meet in the room "test".
    - warent 9y ago
      If you make one, post it here! I'll join
      - oliv__ 9y ago
        Same here
    - kindfellow92 9y ago
      Ditto, y’all were a good crowd
    - oliv__ 9y ago
      It's down now... :(