Huh? Why I cannot just ssh from machine 2 to machine 1 and just type `tail`?
Show HN: An SSH based utility to transfer pipes across machines – beam
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Re: Show HN: An SSH based utility to transfer pipes across machines – beam
#12This is a great way to send all of your files to the author of the utility / operator of the website.
From the readme,
> Beam cannot support end-to-end encrypted buffers. While data is encrypted during transfer to and from the Beam host, it’s decrypted temporarily before being re-encrypted and forwarded. The host only holds a small buffer (typically 1 kB) of unencrypted data at any time and never stores the full stream. For extra security, you can encrypt your files or pipes before sending them through Beam.
With a little effort, beam is as trustable as any (if not more) of its alternatives. And, that extra effort is a result of the design goal of not having to force a binary installation.
Plus, you can always self host beam, it's not that complicated.
Re: Show HN: An SSH based utility to transfer pipes across machines – beam
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
Beam lets you do what you described even when both the machines are isolated and not reachable from one another. All you need is ssh clients on both the machines.
That’s not clear in the readme. It might be worth explicating stating that this uses the SSH protocol but is designed to work on hosts that either dont have OpenSSH enabled or environments where you don’t control the OpenSSH config. Given the current readme, I was left wondering the same as the GP too.
Thanks, makes sense. I'll update the readme.
Re: Show HN: An SSH based utility to transfer pipes across machines – beam
#14Huh? Why I cannot just ssh from machine 2 to machine 1 and just type `tail`?
This is meant for cases when the machines are isolated, for example, when you attach to a remote container and want to download a file from it to your machine.
Re: Show HN: An SSH based utility to transfer pipes across machines – beam
#15I don't see any advantage over plain "-o 'ProxyJump box.in.the.middle'"? I guess this is supposed to buffer things? But then again, that's what "tail -f" is for…
More confused than anything else…
Re: Show HN: An SSH based utility to transfer pipes across machines – beam
#16After reading the readme I’m confused what the advantage is over just regular piping. ‘’’ command-on-server1 | ssh user@server2 'command-on-server2' ‘’’
Beam lets you do what you described even when both the machines are isolated and not reachable from one another. All you need is ssh clients on both the machines.
But if you have ssh clients on both machines, you can use port forwarding to allow machine2 to connect to machine1 via ssh. Or you can connect both machines to the "SSH stun server" (which is something like the beam host if I understand correctly) and let them connect through that.
I mean, I'm not bashing beam, but it's mostly syntactic sugar, not something that provides some actual new functionality, is that right?
Re: Show HN: An SSH based utility to transfer pipes across machines – beam
#17Huh? Why I cannot just ssh from machine 2 to machine 1 and just type `tail`?
This is meant for cases when the machines are isolated, for example, when you attach to a remote container and want to download a file from it to your machine.
Isolated but still able to access (and SSH!) a random server on the internet?
New meaning of the word isolated
Re: Show HN: An SSH based utility to transfer pipes across machines – beam
#18I don't see any advantage over plain "-o 'ProxyJump box.in.the.middle'"? I guess this is supposed to buffer things? But then again, that's what "tail -f" is for… More confused than anything else…
Could you please give a complete example for those not aware? Ty
Re: Show HN: An SSH based utility to transfer pipes across machines – beam
#19I don't see any advantage over plain "-o 'ProxyJump box.in.the.middle'"? I guess this is supposed to buffer things? But then again, that's what "tail -f" is for… More confused than anything else…
It would be great for beam.ssh.camp to implement this (which would require no software, just configuring OpenSSH).
Re: Show HN: An SSH based utility to transfer pipes across machines – beam
#20I don't see any advantage over plain "-o 'ProxyJump box.in.the.middle'"? I guess this is supposed to buffer things? But then again, that's what "tail -f" is for… More confused than anything else…
This is for cases where the server in the middle can't ssh into the target server