Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: Assist – Instant terminal sharing from anywhere

assist.app

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

1–10 of 26 posts

Re: Show HN: Assist – Instant terminal sharing from anywhere

#3

Post by gsundeep »

theflyinghorse wrote: post #2

Do you allow outright all and any commands in the terminal, sudo and all? Does the data go through your pipes at all or strictly between assist clients?

Great questions - these are covered in our FAQ (admittedly buried at the bottom of the home page): https://assist.app/faq.html

Can the assist servers access my computer?

> No, the assist servers are only used for tunneling the connection over the internet. All data exchanged between the assister and assistee is encrypted over SSH. The assist command that is given to the assistee contains all keys necessary to setup a secure connection over SSH. This setup is designed such that a compromised server with the ability to passively monitor or actively modify traffic cannot see or interact with user sessions.

Does allowing someone to assist me give them control over my computer?

> Yes, you should only allow use assist with people if you can trust with your computer. A person logged into your assist session can potentially access any of your files or install malicious software. Allowing someone to assist you is similar to physically allowing someone access to your computer. Assist is meant to be used in situations where you would be okay letting someone use your computer while you are not around.

Re: Show HN: Assist – Instant terminal sharing from anywhere

#5

Post by gsundeep »

ORioN63 wrote: post #4

Honest question: What's the difference with tmate? I haven't seen a reference to it in the site and it looks pretty similar in purpose and usage from a quick look.

The main difference is we use a standard openSSH setup for tunneling - a full ssh key exchange is performed between you and the assistant.

We’re also a paid service so we’re incentivized to make sure things run reliably and customers are well supported.

Re: Show HN: Assist – Instant terminal sharing from anywhere

#6

Post by solidasparagus »

Is it possible to prevent the assister from actually executing the commands on your system?

I could use this in a lot more places if the assister could see my screen/output and propose commands for me to run, but I was still in control of what commands are executed. (i.e. if I could safely use this as part of the customer support process for my customers, I would be extremely willing to pay for it).

Re: Show HN: Assist – Instant terminal sharing from anywhere

#7

Post by gsundeep »

solidasparagus wrote: post #6

Is it possible to prevent the assister from actually executing the commands on your system? I could use this in a lot more places if the assister could see my screen/output and propose commands for me to run, but I was still in control of what commands are executed. (i.e. if I could safely use this as part of the customer support process for my customers, I would be extremely willing to pay for it).

Great idea! “assist -r” should trigger a read-only mode.

We will add this feature soon - please send us an email (team@assist.app) if you’d like to be notified when it’s ready. Thanks!

Re: Show HN: Assist – Instant terminal sharing from anywhere

#9

Post by gsundeep »

bshimmin wrote: post #8

It's perhaps worth noting that the with the venerable GNU Screen, you can more or less achieve this by enabling multiuser mode and then doing screen -x.

While that works well on the same network, Assist uses a publicly accessible tunnel to allow connections from the internet, regardless of wherever you are / local network configuration.
Post reply on HN