Use GraphTerm as a remote terminal (like screen or tmux) — GraphTerm 0.57.0 documentation

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# Use GraphTerm as a remote terminal (like screen or tmux)

Contents

- Use GraphTerm as a remote terminal (like screen or tmux)
  - Introduction
  - Accessing GraphTerm features across SSH logins
  - Accessing GraphTerm server from a remote computer using SSH
  - Connecting multiple hosts to gtermserver
  - Wildcard sessions

## Introduction

GraphTerm provides the basic capabilities of detached terminal programs like `screen` and `tmux`. The GraphTerm terminal window is just a web page, served by `gtermserver`. Therefore, it can be accessed from any computer with access to the server, either locally or remotely. All you need to do is to load the URL for the terminal session on a new computer, and you can continue working from the point where you stopped previously.

A typical use of GraphTerm would be to run `gtermserver` on your work computer, and access it locally at work and remotely from home. For security, it would be best to run the server as `localhost` on the work computer, and use SSH port forwarding to connect to it from other computers.

Another use of GraphTerm would be to run the server on managing host of a computer cluster, or a group of cloud instances. Other hosts can connect to the managing host using the `gtermhost` command. In this case, the hosts should connect via a private network, not the the public internet. The state of the terminal is stored on the host machine, not on `gtermserver`. You can restart `gtermserver` and the hosts will automatically reconnect.

See the README file for basic instructions on installing and starting up GraphTerm.

## Accessing GraphTerm features across SSH logins

If you login to a remote computer using SSH, you can use the terminal/export environment menu option to set the Bash shell environment variables on the remote computer. This will allow some, but not all, of GraphTerm’s features to work on the remote session. If you wish to use more features, set the `PATH` environment variable on the remote machine to allow access to `gls` and other commands, and also use reverse port forwarding to forward your local port(s) to the remote computer. For example, if you wish to connect remote hosts to the GraphTerm server, use:

    ssh -R 8899:localhost:8899 user@remote-computer

## Accessing GraphTerm server from a remote computer using SSH

Assume that you will be running `gtermserver` on your `work-computer` as `localhost` listening on the default port 8900 using the command:

    gtermserver --terminal

At work, you will use the URL `http://localhost:8900/local/tty1` to access your terminal session `tty1`. Now disable the terminal/private menu option, to allow others to share your terminal. You can then access your work terminal from home, by connecting to your work computer using SSH:

    ssh -L 8901:localhost:8900 user@work-computer

The above command maps your work computer port 8900 to your home computer port 8901. (There is also a `-R` option that provides a reverse port mapping, which can be useful if you can log into your desktop from your laptop, and wish to access your laptop files using the desktop browser, by mapping laptop port 8900 to desktop port 8901.)

After establishing the SSH connection, you can access your work terminal session from home using the URL:

    http://localhost:8901/local/tty1

You will need to enter the authentication code from the file ``~/.graphterm/_gterm_auth.txt` on your work computer. (If you forgot to detach your work terminal before leaving, use the steal menu button to steal control of the session.)

If you have multiple terminals open, use the URL `http://localhost:8901/local` to see a list of all the available terminal sessions.

## Connecting multiple hosts to gtermserver

The `gtermhost` command can be used to connect from any computer to `gtermserver` running on a management cmputer as follows:

    gtermhost --server_addr=<serveraddr> <hostname>

where `serveraddr` is the address or name of the computer where `gtermserver` is running (which defaults to localhost). By default, the server listens for host connections on port 8899. You can use SSH tunneling to access `gtermserver` on the management computer, and thus access the hosts, which should be on a secure private network.

NOTE: Unlike the `sshd` server, the `gtermhost` command is designed to be run by a normal user, not a privileged user. So different users can connect to `gtermserver` pretending to be different “hosts” on the same computer.

## Wildcard sessions

A session path is of the form `session_host/session_name`. You can use the shell wildcard patterns `*, ?, []` in the session path. For example, you can open a wildcard session for multiple hosts using the URL:

    http://localhost:8900/*/tty1

For normal shell terminals, a wildcard session will open a “blank” window, but any input you type in it will be broadcast to all sessions matching the pattern. To receive visual feedback, you will need to view one or more of the matching sessions at the same time. You can use the `gframe` command to open up a group of terminals simultaneously, e.g.:

    gframe --height 300 --lheight 50 -c 4 -b -t -p /local/tty a b c d '[abcd]'

For `otrace` debugging sessions of the form `*/osh`, GraphTerm will multiplex the input and output in wildcard terminals. Your input will be echoed and broadcast, and output from each of the matching sessions will be displayed, preceded by an identifying header (with the special string `ditto` used to indicate repeated output). See the otrace integration section in the README file for more information.

NOTE: Multiplexed input/output display cannot be easily implemented for regular shell terminals.

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