SSH server support

[rahji]

It would be cool if you could do something like runal -f sketch.js -p 2222 and have it start as an ssh server on port 2222

I tried a really quick attempt to see if I could make it kind of work. See this branch on my fork: https://github.com/rahji/runal/tree/run2 I basically hacked the Run function so it takes an io.Writer instead of always using io.Stdout. Then I used an ssh.Session (from gliderlabs/ssh)as the argument.

The colors example does kind of work. You can't disconnect and it is just a still image so it was the easiest attempt. I tried adding some movement between frames and that didn't work. Also tried the mouse example to see if input would be recognized but it's totally broken.

There's also wish, which uses gliderlabs/ssh under the hood, but it was easier to start with gliderlabs. Anyway, I'd say it's on my wishlist, but I haven't been using the runal command. So my real wish is to get it working in Go, which maybe just requires finding the right solution to make an existing runal sketch work with whatever server I get working.

[xaviergodart]

Pretty cool!

I agree that it would be cool to have a way to share and/or livestream a sketch at some point.
Do you have other use cases in mind?

[rahji]

That was the idea. (streaming)

If it's just streaming a sketch that isn't interactive (doesn't take keyboard/mouse input) then maybe there's a simpler solution than ssh. For that use case, we could just make up a protocol and do it over websockets or something: runal --ip xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx --port yyyy -f sketch.js on the server and the same command (minus the -f flag) on the client. That would be for a 1-to-1 connection only, with no user input in the sketch.

For sketches that are interactive, however, it needs to know more about the terminal and accept mouse/keyboard events, which is where taking advantage of ssh might be useful - or some other kind of server that accepts connections and creates pseudoterminals for each of them.

At the moment I am trying to share my go binary made with Runal via ssh with no changes to runal. This particular sketch isn't interactive but I like the idea of many people being to connect and requiring only an ssh client, which is probably already on their system. Anyway, it's a different workflow than adding a feature to Runal. I'll keep you posted.

[rahji]

If it's just streaming a sketch that isn't interactive (doesn't take keyboard/mouse input) then maybe there's a simpler solution than ssh. For that use case, we could just make up a protocol and do it over websockets or something: runal --ip xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx --port yyyy -f sketch.js on the server and the same command (minus the -f flag) on the client. That would be for a 1-to-1 connection only, with no user input in the sketch.

Actually, even this simple server gets more complex because it still needs info about the terminal and needs to react to window size changes.