12 ms·
Introducing Prompt. Nice SSH for iOS.
- plusbryan 16y agoHey @panic - I love the shiny new products, but could you pretty please update Coda a bit? It used to be my favorite editor, but the lack of git is killing me!
- taylorbuley 16y agoI've tried the GitX integration to no avail http://justinhileman.info/git-for-coda/ http://justinhileman.info/git-for-coda/ I'm sure they're already working hard on Coda 2. I wonder if this might have been an experiment to see if Transit code could be ported to iOS
- ten7 16y agoI thought git integration into Coda was an absolute must but after using Git Tower, command line (inevitable) and really understanding how git works (http://ftp.newartisans.com/pub/git.from.bottom.up.pdf http://ftp.newartisans.com/pub/git.from.bottom.up.pdf) I've surprised myself in that I don't see git integration as important any more. More interested in code folding. Now THAT would be sweet.
- lordlarm 16y agoThe problem with ssh on iOS and then especially iPhone is the size of the screen. When I'm eg. connect to irssi I can maybe see one line of previous conversations. And regarding 'Prompt', I dont see how Panic has made something 'new' here. There are several ssh clients with favorites, shortcuts and nice designs. Some are even free.
- ceejayoz 16y agoThe SSH clients I've used on iOS - iTerm, iSSH - have been decent but unpolished. This one feels a lot more usable thus far.
- freerobby 16y agoAgree, but iSSH is also crammed with helpful features like public key authentication. Prompt is going to have to match those to become a favorite of the hacker crowd.
- ceejayoz 16y agoPrompt does have public key authentication.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- freerobby 16y agoIt wasn't clear to me how fully supported this is. Lots of people have had issues with this, see the comments: http://www.panic.com/blog/2011/04/introducing-prompt-ssh-for-ios/ http://www.panic.com/blog/2011/04/introducing-prompt-ssh-for...
- ceejayoz 16y agoAnyone got any ideas on getting a .pem key from EC2 into this? I got my non-EC2 id_rsa into it just fine, but .pems seem to disappear.
- Toucan 16y agoYou can convert the .pem by doing something like: openssl rsa -in test.pem > test.rsa
- ceejayoz 16y agoRunning that on my EC2 .pem yields this: unable to load Private Key 56049:error:0906D06C:PEM routines:PEM_read_bio:no start line:/SourceCache/OpenSSL098/OpenSSL098-35/src/crypto/pem/pem_lib.c:650:Expecting: ANY PRIVATE KEY
- Toucan 16y agoJust checked the .pem I was given (by a person, not by Amazon) - looks like it was an RSA format key all along. I'm a little confused - it's possible I'm an idiot. I'll check to make sure I'm an idiot by seeing what I can generate from Amazon itself.
- mpakes 16y agoI've noticed the same thing. AWS keys appear to actually be RSA keys, with a .pem extension.
- rbritton 16y agoThey still don't seem to work with the app though. I've tried multiple approaches and it keeps claiming the key was rejected by the server. The ssh log only shows: Apr 14 21:20:51 ip---- sshd[31560]: Received disconnect from ---------: 11: Normal Shutdown. Thank you!
- steadicat 16y ago
- justinxreese 16y agoIt's definitely one of the prettier SSH apps, but it faces the same barrier I've seen with other SSH apps - typing is too slow! It will sometimes be a full 2 seconds between when i finish a word and it starts appearing on the screen. Has anyone else noticed this or found one that doesn't do this? I'm doing this on iPhone, maybe the iPad is better, but I don't see any reason why.
- taylorbuley 16y agoMy demo also suggested sluggishness when typing. I figured it was my network connection.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- nuclear_eclipse 16y agoI assume the cause of this is the high latency in your cell phone's data connection. I can eliminate most of the latency of using ConnectBot on my Android phone just by being connected to Wifi instead of HSPA.
- jrockway 16y agoreadline should really emit some character when it enters and leaves line-editing mode, so the line-editing can happen on the client side. It's not annoying to wait 200ms after you've finished your command and are waiting for the output. It is annoying to wait 200ms for your backspace to take effect.
- Terretta 16y agoWelcome to dialup, average latency 220 ms.
- jrockway 16y agoSo, as a UNIX hacker, here's what I don't get about the iOS community. There is way too much excitement over the simplest things ever. Let's break down some of the copy for this app: Prompt is a clean, crisp, and cheerful SSH client What does that mean? What does a clean ssh client do; not commit any protocol violations? What is crisp? When you bite into it, it's like a ripe apple? What does cheerful mean? Is the ssh client really happy that it can make a TCP connection to the intarwebs, especially for me? What does this sentence mean to someone that wants to ssh from their phone? it helps you when you need it, and stays out of your way when you don’t So when I want to be sshing, I can run it, and when I don't want to be sshing, I don't have to run it? Splendid. It works like every other computer program ever made. Perfect for system administrators, web developers, movie-style hackers (“Let me just TCP/IP into the UNIX port!”), or any person who needs to connect remotely and type some magic. So I googled for "ssh client", found your page, and you're telling me who uses ssh clients. How would you get to this page without knowing what ssh is, and how would you know what ssh is without needing to use it? Anyway, a lot of happy-sounding words for ... a program that decrypts text from the Internet and writes it to the screen.
- ojilles 16y agoRight, it's called marketing. And it tries to describe what the authors were aiming for. F.ex. //it helps you when you need it, and stays out of your way when you don’t// I read as "We don't use UI chrome that's distracting, only showing those things that you need contextually".
- Maascamp 16y agoIt seems just like ConnectBot for Android, except it costs $5.
- cschmidt 16y agoI think your comment highlights a difference between the Android and iOS communities. Android users just want free software, while iOS users don't mind paying for quality. Guess which platform ends up with the slickest software, with the most spit and polish. Developers find paying customers on iOS, so that's where the develop.
- rauljara 16y agoAnyone downloaded this? Anyone have a sense of how it compares to any other ssh clients? I was super excited when I downloaded TouchTerm, but it was just so difficult to do anything with it on my iPhone that I gave up, despite thinking it was very clever. The Prompt screenshots at least look a lot cleaner than TouchTerm's, but I don't want to go through another fit of excitement only to never actually use it.
- chesspro 16y agoI haven't tried out many other ssh clients, but I just bought prompt. I'm really digging the little bar above the keyboard that adds the most commonly used keys like esc, ctrl, tab, @, arrow keys. It makes my server admin jobs a lot easier.
- devinfoley 16y agoI downloaded it. I was a long time iSSH user on iPhone and iPad (with external keyboard). I'll be using this instead. Emulation looks better, arrow keys are easier to find and use, and it looks better. I'm a sucker for a pretty face.
- askedrelic 16y agoDoes this have 256 color support? Anyone know of an iOS Terminal with 256 color support? Too much to ask for in a terminal? Heh.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- ceejayoz 16y agoIt does seem to have 256 color support - I'm seeing lots of red, blue, green, pink.
- jimwise 16y agoHaven't checked which color escapes (16 or 256) it actually supports, but it does do the xterm-color color escapes just fine. GNUS looks really nice, for instance. :-)
- burgerbrain 16y agoThe correct terminfo for 256 colours is xterm-256color, not xterm-color (which is obsolete). Simply the 'xterm' terminfo is sufficient to indicate 16 colour support these days.
- jimwise 16y agoThat's good advice on ncurses-based systems. This is Solaris 10 (SysV curses, with a hand-imported xterm-color terminfo entry). :-)
- jimwise 16y agoI'd been using touchterm for a while, and had experimented with other iOS ssh clients. They... worked, but the experience always felt a bit clunky. I've been using prompt for a day now, and so far it feels better than the others. The app design feels really clean, the method of expanding the keyboard to handle modifier keys and frequently-used non-alpha keys works well without grabbing too much screen real estate (this is clearly visible in the screen shots for what it's worth). Finally, the terminal emulation has been flawless for me so far. Emacs runs well (and is quite usable with Prompt's modifier key placement, unlike in other iOS ssh clients I'd tried; remember, folks, ESC is Meta, Meta is ESC). touchTerm had some screen lag/partial refresh issues for me with Emacs -- these may have been fixed in later versions, though, as I gave up at some point. In short, I like it. obDisclaimer: I don't know the developers. I don't have a dog in this fight. I do like the app. I'm not the only one who likes it though -- see the daringfireball take here: http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/04/14/prompt http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/04/14/prompt
- dhimes 16y agoI just bought it. It is slow and unresponsive to me- I have to wait for the screen to catch up with my typing. I'm on an iPhone4- so it's not like I'm typing fast. Nice, clean design though.
- mitchty 16y agoBeen lurking on HN for a while, finally decided to comment for once. Same experience on a 3gs (I've been waiting for the white 4, not sure why anymore), painfully slow to do anything, including just closing a connection. I just gave up waiting and let tcp time it out. The biggest killer of being able to use it was readline support is horrid. First thing I did was login and escape-/ + ssh + n a few times and half the screen turned into some amalgamation of things that matched ssh. I didn't try emacs readline support but expect its about the same. Interface is spot on, but it has a long ways to go before it can do basic terminal work. iSSH is still going to be on my homescreen for a while it looks like.
- ludwigvan 16y ago
- twism 16y agoHas anyone tried GNU Screen on this yet (before I plunk down the $5)? Thanks.
- st3fan 16y agoWorks fine.
- twism 16y agoNope. It did not.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- jalada 16y agoCould you elaborate?
- mieky 16y agoI had a hard time trying to use irssi inside screen. On each new line it would refresh some 10-15 times and usually clutter most of the bottom half of the screen. Definitely still needs work. With these problems fixed, it might well become the finest iOS SSH app there is.
- twism 16y agoconstant flickering when starting or resuming a screen session.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- ezy 16y agoiSSH is still better. Especially on an iPad, and most definitely if you use a bluetooth keyboard once in a while [1] Furthermore, I don't understand how someone could even make the remark that an ssh client reminds them of linux, and mean it negatively. :-) I certainly don't want an the equivalent IOS SSH client to the one Apple makes for OSX -- Terminal is rather shitty. [1] BT keyboards on ipads don't support CTRL as a modifier for all keys, you have to create a workaround. So far, iSSH is the only app I've seen that has done it (By using option and remapping). EDIT: Ga! Read the wrong tab.. was responding to Prompt and Grubers comments on it (re: linux), but this link points to the actual app. Just clearing that up... sorry.
- swombat 16y agoAs a happy user of Terminal, what's wrong with it? It's fast, it's simple, it supports multiple colour profiles, it can be customised like any other shell... What more do you want out of your terminals?
- xyzzyb 16y agoIndeed. Paired with gnu screen and some bash scripts Terminal is very nice. I've got, for example, ctrl+a+t setup to trigger a script that opens a new screen tab, prompts for [user@]host:, starts up an ssh session to the host, renames the tab to host for easy reference.
- jcsalterego 16y agoI still use Terminal.app on a daily basis but here are some missing features: - 256 color support (for your pretty emacs or vim) - advanced bookmarks, with tagging - send to multiple tabs
- matthijs 16y agoFor 265 color support you can use this: https://github.com/timmfin/terminalcolours https://github.com/timmfin/terminalcolours
- alexg0 16y agoHow is this different/better then iSSH?
- chmike 16y agoThis looks like spam to me.
- jcsalterego 16y agoThere's a flag for that™
- krosaen 16y agoA bit off topic but anyone know how they do the fancy header with the pushpin notes swaying forward as you hover over them?
- ajarmoniuk 16y agoHad to load the page in Chrome to see what you meant.
- zer0her0 16y agoA quick look @ the source looks like CSS3 transitions, specifically webkit CSS3 transitions.
- krosaen 16y agoah good call, I was poking around the js
- doron 16y agoSlightly off-topic I couldn't find a free SSH Ios app. not that 4-5$ is a big deal, but there are myriad of ssh clients for free on android, no doubt due to different clientele, and different developer sentiments.
- flyosity 16y agoAnd the well-researched statistics on Android users being less likely to purchase apps.
- nuclear_eclipse 16y agoOr mostly because all the good SSH clients are open source software, and were created before the Android Market had support for buying applications, so they have just remained free.
- cambriar 16y agoI look forward to giving this a shot. I have been used to the Terminal application on my iPhone, even with the gestures, and it was never any fun to work with. I saw that you implemented arrows on the keyboard, and I was in. Thank you. I believe this is my first Tier 5 purchase, I'm such a bum.
- cloudkj 16y agoI was just looking for a simple SSH client for the iPhone today, and was disappointed that all the apps cost a few pretty pennies. Any recommendations on the SSH client(s) that will get me the best bang for my buck? EDIT: I caved and just bought Prompt. It is indeed pretty slick, though I don't have other iOS SSH clients to compare it to. There does appear to be some bugs: I can't seem to "disconnect" from a session, even though it's already hung. The little "eject" icon in the servers list doesn't seem to work.
- sigil 16y agoDoes anyone else have a major problem with the idea of using a closed-source SSH client? Even if it is App Store reviewed, I just can't bring myself to type production passwords into such a thing. For this reason, and because I'd also like an on-the-go SSH client setup that works on other devices, it would be great to see a browser based terminal emulator and pty muxer like ajaxterm [1] really take off. It's almost there, but currently not so usable in mobile Safari. https://github.com/nats/ajaxterm https://github.com/nats/ajaxterm
- mryall 16y agoEven in your preferred case, you're typing your passwords into a closed source browser on a closed source OS. You have to trust someone at some point. Panic also seems to be a quite reputable company. They've been in the Mac software business for a long time.
- sigil 16y ago> Even in your preferred case, you're typing your passwords into a closed source browser on a closed source OS. One could argue that iOS / Mobile Safari are both under incomparably more pressure to remain secure compared to any individual app, but you're totally right on a fundamental level. The truly paranoid should demand openness at all layers. > You have to trust someone at some point. Whole 'nother debate. ;) > Panic also seems to be a quite reputable company. They've been in the Mac software business for a long time. No doubt about that. I wasn't insinuating anything about their intentions (this didn't even occur to me until your comment). Just that an SSH client is a pretty complex piece of software, and there are plenty of ways to make mistakes. We've come a long way since the days of telnet and scrutiny / skepticism has played a big part in that.
- leejoramo 16y agoPanic has had SFTP built into Transmit since 1998, and a full SSH terminal in Coda since 2007. So Prompt did not come out of nowhere, they have quite a bit of experience in this problem space. Still if you are in an industry that demands careful vetting of security, I certainly agree one should not jump on a new SSH client right away.
- ignifero 16y agoI wonder if this would get so upvoted if it was free.
- mixmastamyk 16y agoThanks for the advertisement. Would be nice to have a free ssh client for ipad.
- reduxredacted 16y agoI'm presently using iSSH, which supports port tunnels (SSH Port Forwarding as PuTTY calls it). Could anyone enlighten me as to whether or not it supports SSH port forwarding and how well that works? iSSH works pretty well, but it pops up regularly warning that it's going to disconnect due to inactivity (despite the fact that I'm actively using the port tunnel to RDP into something).
- twir 16y agoITT: pedantry over the words "clean, crisp, and cheerful."
- luckydude 16y agoSo I bought this, didn't much care for it, anyone care to tell me how to kill a connection?
- avdempsey 16y agoType exit. ...or, hit the globe icon which takes you to the connections screen, and tap the eject icon.
- xuki 16y agoI type "exit" and the app crashes. I think this is a feature.