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Show HN: ServerBuddy – GUI SSH client for managing Linux servers from macOS

serverbuddy.app

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Re: Show HN: ServerBuddy – GUI SSH client for managing Linux servers from macOS

#12

Post by dpraburaj »

latchkey wrote: post #9

Nice work! How about something that also watches GPUs on the system? Specifically looking for AMD MI300x support.

Thanks, that's a good suggestion. I will incorporate GPU info and maybe even a distinct Hardware section/tab for other device metrics after some planning.

Re: Show HN: ServerBuddy – GUI SSH client for managing Linux servers from macOS

#13

Post by c0balt »

dpraburaj wrote: post #10
c0balt wrote: post #2

The GUI looks useful but for the core problem: > Managing multiple Linux servers usually means juggling terminal windows and copy-pasting snippets/scripts. [...] There is already a plethora of tooling for many of these points. Not a lot of GUI stuff but ansible seems to cover a lot of ground (inventory, organized playbooks instead of shell scripts). Ansible also "just" uses SSH as a transplrt mechanism. This feels li…

Ah, I should have clarified. I'd say ServerBuddy's probably a complementary tool alongside Ansible/Puppet/Salt etc. I have used Ansible quite a bit. When I need to accomplish something relatively large and standard(e.g. two node MySQL installation with a replica), I'd reach for my Ansible playbooks. However, there are certain one-off flows for which I think SB has a sweet spot. Let's say I'm an agency managing web ap…

Thank for you expanding/clarifying on the intended use case.

That does make a lot more sense. Apologies if the initial comment came off to negative there, I'm likely just not the target audience.

I wish you the best of luck with your product.

Re: Show HN: ServerBuddy – GUI SSH client for managing Linux servers from macOS

#14

Post by dpraburaj »

johnklos wrote: post #3

I don't understand what makes this Linux specific. Does it upload binaries or something? I'm failing to see the bigger picture here.

SB is Linux specific(actually even only a few Distro specific such as Debian/Centos flavors) as there are tabs like "Packages" which are very dependent on what package manager is used. There's also functionality for managing Systemd services and I'm not sure if Systemd's being used by other Unixes.

In theory, the app can work on any Posix compliant Unix box and have fallbacks for tabs/sections where functionality is not implemented. However, this would require quite a bit of testing overhead. My current test suite matrix for a bunch of VMs with different auth methods already took quite a bit of effort to get working. I'm not sure I'd be able to ship new features/fixes quickly if the supported OSes list increases, at least for the time being.

Re: Show HN: ServerBuddy – GUI SSH client for managing Linux servers from macOS

#15

Post by dpraburaj »

vlucas wrote: post #5

This is a great looking app that certainly fills a niche (don't listen to the naysayers here). Seems like your target niche might be indie hacker types who are not as familiar with all the server management and setup stuff (or just want to make it easier). Does this help with initial server setup (from a bare VPS) or running/deploying new apps? That would be an great next step to help less technically inclined folks…

Thank you for the kind words. I welcome all feedback(good or bad) as I think there's plenty of value in both.

Yep, indie hackers are definitely a target group.

There is support for initial setup such as adding a new sudo user, installing Docker etc. but this isn't a single step operation. I'll write a document for this today or tomorrow.

I've though of adding support for Dokku(or something similar) in a separate tab to make managing apps easier. I will investigate and see what the best option might be.

Re: Show HN: ServerBuddy – GUI SSH client for managing Linux servers from macOS

#17

Post by mekster »

c0balt wrote: post #2

The GUI looks useful but for the core problem: > Managing multiple Linux servers usually means juggling terminal windows and copy-pasting snippets/scripts. [...] There is already a plethora of tooling for many of these points. Not a lot of GUI stuff but ansible seems to cover a lot of ground (inventory, organized playbooks instead of shell scripts). Ansible also "just" uses SSH as a transplrt mechanism. This feels li…

Tell me how you use Ansible to check cron jobs, docker container states and read logs.

Re: Show HN: ServerBuddy – GUI SSH client for managing Linux servers from macOS

#18

Post by mekster »

vlucas wrote: post #5

This is a great looking app that certainly fills a niche (don't listen to the naysayers here). Seems like your target niche might be indie hacker types who are not as familiar with all the server management and setup stuff (or just want to make it easier). Does this help with initial server setup (from a bare VPS) or running/deploying new apps? That would be an great next step to help less technically inclined folks…

I haven't tried the app yet but I have managed Linux servers for 20 years and still think this app can be pretty useful.

You can use whatever tools to set up the initial state of a server using this app.

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