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Mosh: The Mobile Shell

mosh.org

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Re: Mosh: The Mobile Shell

#121

Post by eminence32 »

rkangel wrote: post #118
keithwinstein wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the truth is that we don't feel like we need a release. We've never had a security hole, our track record speaks for itself, and I wouldn't really want us to rush anything and blow that. There are some features that it would be really nice to have in a release (like 24-bit color support, and working around a recent MacOS clock bug), but I handed over the maintainership to somebody else about six years ago and…

> It would feel arrogant to compare Mosh to TeX, but it doesn't seem that crazy to imagine that some software might reach a point where it has accomplished 95% of its goals The difference that I think makes this comparison invalid is that Mosh is a communication tool, whereas Tex is running locally on files. We (as a community) have learned that any software with a networked attack surface slowly gets less secure ove…

If a security issue was discovered in mosh, I feel pretty confident that we would find a way to make a release with that fix (even if it's just a point release that applies the fix on top of the current `1.3.2` tag)

Re: Mosh: The Mobile Shell

#122

Post by hcrean »

keithwinstein wrote: post #37

Mosh original author here -- fun to see us back here yet again. Happy to answer any questions.

It is a VERY useful tool that I have used every day for at least 3 years.

There are two really annoying niggles that I have with it, but both I have solved by using a Screen session on the server:

- Scrolling turns out to be very important to most workflows. The choice to start mosh in Append mode (with chance of output corruption) rather than replace mode would be a cool thing.

- There is no easy way to pick up a session again when the client dies. I understand that this is an intended security "feature" though.

But beyond this it is a truly fabulous tool that has saved me many many hours of frustration.

Re: Mosh: The Mobile Shell

#123

Post by Crontab »

keithwinstein wrote: post #43
shp0ngle wrote: post #4

Note that Mosh has not had release for 4 years, even when pull requests are accepted on github, and the team lead says "we are too busy/burned out". https://github.com/mobile-shell/mosh/issues/1115

I think the truth is that we don't feel like we need a release. We've never had a security hole, our track record speaks for itself, and I wouldn't really want us to rush anything and blow that. There are some features that it would be really nice to have in a release (like 24-bit color support, and working around a recent MacOS clock bug), but I handed over the maintainership to somebody else about six years ago and…

> we don't feel like we need a release

I think a lot of users look at the release history and cadence as a sort of heartbeat; in order to tell if a project is still being maintained. That can be a problem when a program reaches a mature state.

Re: Mosh: The Mobile Shell

#124

Post by mbreese »

codetrotter wrote: post #104
d4l3k wrote: post #50

Adding port forwarding to Mosh has a $600 bounty -- highest OSS bounty I've ever seen https://www.bountysource.com/issues/4471419-ssh-port-forward... https://github.com/mobile-shell/mosh/issues/337

As someone that used to use SSH port forwarding, I have a recommendation that may be a suitable alternative to the lack of port forwarding in Mosh, as well as being an alternative to port forwarding over SSH. Wireguard! This is what I do instead of port forwarding over SSH since quite a while back now. I run a Wireguard VPN on a VPS, and have machines connect to that VPN. This allows me to reach the machines on the V…

I think you could setup something like this on the fly too without root access. I’m not entirely sure, but a while back fly.io published [1] an article talking about how they use wireguard-go [2] to do something similar in user space. I might even try this too…

[1] https://fly.io/blog/ssh-and-user-mode-ip-wireguard/

[2] https://git.zx2c4.com/wireguard-go/about/

Re: Mosh: The Mobile Shell

#125

Post by gadders »

keithwinstein wrote: post #43
shp0ngle wrote: post #4

Note that Mosh has not had release for 4 years, even when pull requests are accepted on github, and the team lead says "we are too busy/burned out". https://github.com/mobile-shell/mosh/issues/1115

I think the truth is that we don't feel like we need a release. We've never had a security hole, our track record speaks for itself, and I wouldn't really want us to rush anything and blow that. There are some features that it would be really nice to have in a release (like 24-bit color support, and working around a recent MacOS clock bug), but I handed over the maintainership to somebody else about six years ago and…

Can it read email? I think that is the acid test for whether software is "done" :-)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Zawinski

Re: Mosh: The Mobile Shell

#126

Post by narraturgy »

Jtsummers wrote: post #40
jacob019 wrote: post #25

I typically use ssh over wireguard and tmux if I need persistent sessions. Wireguard takes care of the unstable remote link and changing IPs. I can suspend my laptop on one connection, wake it up later on another and still have an active session. I use openssh via Termux for the client on Android or whatever terminal emulator on the laptop. Can mosh offer me anything?

My setup is iPad + MBP + Linux server. I use mosh to connect, also with a Wireguard VPN, and have tmux running on the server. It's very convenient to pop open Blink on my iPad and have everything right where I left it (modulo changes made while on the MBP) and the reverse when I pull up the terminal on my MBP. The main benefit for me is mobility, though, not the restore from sleep itself. When I started using this se…

Can you speak to the experience of coding on the iPad? I have been considering picking one up for personal reasons but the price seemed prohibitive when I thought it simply could not be used for portable work purposes at all.

Re: Mosh: The Mobile Shell

#127

Post by linsomniac »

I've been watching mosh for years, but I kept running into some sort of environment/locale issue that was getting in the way. Finally, a couple months ago I got "Linux (Beta)" available for my Chromebook and switched to using it rather than a Chrome SSH plugin to login to my work computers.

I started up mosh and it's been glorious! I used to have to reconnect every time my chromebook went to sleep for any length of time, but now I've had a single session open for ~6 weeks.

It has a nice banner when it loses connectivity, so I immediately know there are network/VPN issues. I don't love the "Control-^" escape key, because it interferes with "Last buffer" in vi, but otherwise it's worked flawlessly.

A decade or so ago I pointed a client at mosh, he had a rural property with satellite Internet and he managed a bunch of other peoples computers. He was overjoyed with mosh!

Re: Mosh: The Mobile Shell

#128

Post by eminence32 »

linsomniac wrote: post #127

I've been watching mosh for years, but I kept running into some sort of environment/locale issue that was getting in the way. Finally, a couple months ago I got "Linux (Beta)" available for my Chromebook and switched to using it rather than a Chrome SSH plugin to login to my work computers. I started up mosh and it's been glorious! I used to have to reconnect every time my chromebook went to sleep for any length of t…

> I don't love the "Control-^" escape key, because it interferes with "Last buffer" in vi, but otherwise it's worked flawlessly.

In case you didn't know, you can change the escape key to something that fits better for you. See the mosh man page (MOSH_ESCAPE_KEY).

Re: Mosh: The Mobile Shell

#129

Post by jwr »

keithwinstein wrote: post #37

Mosh original author here -- fun to see us back here yet again. Happy to answer any questions.

Thank you for creating a fantastically useful tool. I use it every day, it works very well, and I'd be happy to contribute to your Github sponsors account.

Re: Mosh: The Mobile Shell

#130

Post by treesknees »

notorandit wrote: post #102

It's a neat solution, indeed. But is that actually viable and useful? Not sure. First, you need to open firewalls to UDP port ranges. Second, you still need SSH to be in place and reachable. Third, as soon as you kick off mosh you loose all bells and whistles by SSH (like TCP forwarders, SOCKS proxies etc.). So my idea is: nice for amateur small infrastructures, pretty useless for real world (cloud) infras. Maybe you…

Not useless, you just need to think about how to use the tool in a different way. I use mosh to login to a stable jump box and then from there use tmux/ssh to branch out all my sessions to cloud infrastructure or other devices that only accept ssh.
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