3 ms·

I often need to login to colleagues' machines at work, but I find that their settings are not what I am familiar with. So I wrote an SSH wrapper in POSIX shell

by sdovan1 9mo ago

I often need to login to colleagues' machines at work, but I find that their settings are not what I am familiar with. So I wrote an SSH wrapper in POSIX shell which tars dotfiles into a base64 string, passes it to SSH, and decodes / setups on the remote temp directory. Automatically remove when session ends. Supported: .profile, .vimrc, .bashrc, .tmux.conf, etc. This idea comes from kyrat[1]; passing files via a base64 string is a really cool approach. [1]: https://github.com/fsquillace/kyrat/ https://github.com/fsquillace/kyrat/

amelius 9mo ago
Ok, but what if your colleague does not have Vim installed? Wouldn't it make more sense to have a tool that brings files over to the local computer, starts Vim on them, and then copies them back?
- Joker_vD 9mo ago
  That starts to sound like using VS Code in remote mode.
  - exe34 9mo ago
    Emacs in tramp mode.
- QuinnyPig 9mo ago
  I can’t recall encountering a system in the last 15 years that didn’t have vim (or at least vi for esoteric things) on it.
  - deleted 9mo ago
    [deleted]
  - SoftTalker 9mo ago
    Would not be uncommon in a container or purpose-built VM.
    - godelski 9mo ago
      Have you run into that? I can't recall ever facing that issue. Seems very weird to strip down that much and then use a different editor. Do you remember if ed was missing in those machines?
      - SoftTalker 9mo ago
        Yes I've run into containers where every utility that wasn't needed to run the service was stripped out. Even tools such as "less."
        godelski 9mo ago
        So what was the editor?
      - bartvk 9mo ago
        > Do you remember if ed was missing in those machines I had to laugh out loud. I couldn't imagine such a system, that wouldn't be POSIX compliant. So I looked it up, and indeed, it's entirely possible. Debian doesn't necessarily include it. https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/609067 https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/609067
  - godelski 9mo ago
    While not mandatory, vi is part of the POSIX commands. I mean you could use ed or even hack your way with awk, sed, and/or grep but no one wants to deal with that bullshit. And if you're installing vi you might as well install vim, right? I've been on a lot of systems and can't remember a single instance of not having vi (though I do vim). So pretty rare, like you said https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_POSIX_commands https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_POSIX_commands
- sdovan1 9mo ago
  We usually work on the VM with daily-built ISO. For example, I would compile and upload Java program to the frontend team member's VM, and type "srt" for "systemctl restart tomcat."
Joker_vD 9mo ago
scp my-precious-dotfiles remote:~ trap 'ssh remote rm my-precious-dotfiles' EXIT ssh remote Or you can even bake the trap into the remote bash's invocation, although that'd be a bit harder.
- stephenlf 9mo ago
  That overwrites the remote dotfiles. Any workarounds?
  - rzzzt 9mo ago
    GNU Stow? https://systemcrafters.net/managing-your-dotfiles/using-gnu-stow/ https://systemcrafters.net/managing-your-dotfiles/using-gnu-... Keep the alternate sets in different subdirectories.
    - Joker_vD 9mo ago
      It's kinda amusing how much of interesting software there is beyond coreutils and GCC that came from GNU, and how little adoption it has actually seen.
  - zeech 9mo ago
    I've found lnk [0] to be a nice tool for this. Similar to GNU Stow as another comment mentioned, but plays a bit nicer with git (and, in my opinion, is nicer to use). Edit: just remembered there was a good comparison of lnk and stow on the HN discussion of lnk from a few months back [1]. [0] https://github.com/yarlson/lnk https://github.com/yarlson/lnk [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44080514 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44080514
  - godelski 9mo ago
    :h netrw You can also just place config files anywhere if you know what you then load. That's what I do in my dotfiles, but not exactly like the parent. I also purposefully keep the repo size tiny so it's also just easy to clone. I'd recommend setting a env var so you can always just set that Also don't forget you can have local vim files. I have a function at the end of my vimrc that looks for '.exrc', '.vim.local', '.nvim.local' in the current directory. Helpful for setting project settings.
alsetmusic 9mo ago
I came across something similar a few months ago. I pieced together a working hybrid by patching in parts from an older release with the latest version. I didn't ever work out if the latest version failed because of something in my environment or not, but I'm on a Mac fwiw. https://github.com/cdown/sshrc https://github.com/cdown/sshrc
deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]
xuhu 9mo ago
How much time does it add when running e.g. "shittp user@lan-host uname" ?
fragmede 9mo ago
> I often need to login to colleagues' machines at work, but I find that their settings are not what I am familiar with I'd hate to jump to conclusions, but what username are you looking into what machines with for that to be an issue?

by sdovan1 9mo ago

amelius 9mo ago

Ok, but what if your colleague does not have Vim installed? Wouldn't it make more sense to have a tool that brings files over to the local computer, starts Vim on them, and then copies them back?

Joker_vD 9mo ago
That starts to sound like using VS Code in remote mode.
- exe34 9mo ago
  Emacs in tramp mode.
QuinnyPig 9mo ago
I can’t recall encountering a system in the last 15 years that didn’t have vim (or at least vi for esoteric things) on it.
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
- SoftTalker 9mo ago
  Would not be uncommon in a container or purpose-built VM.
  - godelski 9mo ago
    Have you run into that? I can't recall ever facing that issue. Seems very weird to strip down that much and then use a different editor. Do you remember if ed was missing in those machines?
    - SoftTalker 9mo ago
      Yes I've run into containers where every utility that wasn't needed to run the service was stripped out. Even tools such as "less."
      - godelski 9mo ago
        So what was the editor?
    - bartvk 9mo ago
      > Do you remember if ed was missing in those machines I had to laugh out loud. I couldn't imagine such a system, that wouldn't be POSIX compliant. So I looked it up, and indeed, it's entirely possible. Debian doesn't necessarily include it. https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/609067 https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/609067
- godelski 9mo ago
  While not mandatory, vi is part of the POSIX commands. I mean you could use ed or even hack your way with awk, sed, and/or grep but no one wants to deal with that bullshit. And if you're installing vi you might as well install vim, right? I've been on a lot of systems and can't remember a single instance of not having vi (though I do vim). So pretty rare, like you said https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_POSIX_commands https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_POSIX_commands
sdovan1 9mo ago
We usually work on the VM with daily-built ISO. For example, I would compile and upload Java program to the frontend team member's VM, and type "srt" for "systemctl restart tomcat."

Joker_vD 9mo ago

scp my-precious-dotfiles remote:~ trap 'ssh remote rm my-precious-dotfiles' EXIT ssh remote Or you can even bake the trap into the remote bash's invocation, although that'd be a bit harder.

stephenlf 9mo ago
That overwrites the remote dotfiles. Any workarounds?
- rzzzt 9mo ago
  GNU Stow? https://systemcrafters.net/managing-your-dotfiles/using-gnu-stow/ https://systemcrafters.net/managing-your-dotfiles/using-gnu-... Keep the alternate sets in different subdirectories.
  - Joker_vD 9mo ago
    It's kinda amusing how much of interesting software there is beyond coreutils and GCC that came from GNU, and how little adoption it has actually seen.
- zeech 9mo ago
  I've found lnk [0] to be a nice tool for this. Similar to GNU Stow as another comment mentioned, but plays a bit nicer with git (and, in my opinion, is nicer to use). Edit: just remembered there was a good comparison of lnk and stow on the HN discussion of lnk from a few months back [1]. [0] https://github.com/yarlson/lnk https://github.com/yarlson/lnk [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44080514 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44080514
- godelski 9mo ago
  :h netrw You can also just place config files anywhere if you know what you then load. That's what I do in my dotfiles, but not exactly like the parent. I also purposefully keep the repo size tiny so it's also just easy to clone. I'd recommend setting a env var so you can always just set that Also don't forget you can have local vim files. I have a function at the end of my vimrc that looks for '.exrc', '.vim.local', '.nvim.local' in the current directory. Helpful for setting project settings.

alsetmusic 9mo ago

I came across something similar a few months ago. I pieced together a working hybrid by patching in parts from an older release with the latest version. I didn't ever work out if the latest version failed because of something in my environment or not, but I'm on a Mac fwiw. https://github.com/cdown/sshrc https://github.com/cdown/sshrc

deleted 9mo ago

[deleted]

xuhu 9mo ago

How much time does it add when running e.g. "shittp user@lan-host uname" ?

fragmede 9mo ago

> I often need to login to colleagues' machines at work, but I find that their settings are not what I am familiar with I'd hate to jump to conclusions, but what username are you looking into what machines with for that to be an issue?