Integrate tmate-like features for enhanced terminal sharing

[baccenfutter]

I would like to propose the idea of integrating tmate-like functionality into Zellij.

For those, who are not familiar with Tmate, it is bascially a wrapper around tmux allowing for easy terminal-sharing via SSH. When starting Tmate, it creates a remote port-forwarding on some central SSH server through which clients can connect via SSH to be forwarded directly into the host's tmux.

Example output of hosting a Tmate session:

# tmate
Tip: if you wish to use tmate only for remote access, run: tmate -F                                                                                                                                    [0/0]
To see the following messages again, run in a tmate session: tmate show-messages
Press <q> or <ctrl-c> to continue
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Connecting to central.ssh.server.local...
Note: clear your terminal before sharing readonly access
ssh session read only: ssh -p2222 [email protected]
ssh session: ssh -p2222 [email protected]

The clients need nothing more than a standard SSH client and simply connect to the SSH endpoint shared by the host. Multiple client connections are supported.

[Lockszmith-GH]

Interesting, I do this with guacamole via a web browser, nice to know there is an SSH option.
Though, doesn't sound like something in the scope of zellij. I mean, it's not even in the scope of tmux, as it's a separate project.

[baccenfutter]

I agree, that is certainly not within the scope of terminal multiplexing, in general. However, from a user perspective, it is the one final thing that keeps forcing me back to use tmux instead of zellij. I switched my entire workflow over to zellij and being "forced back" to tmux is just a PITA.

I decided to make the proposal, because -- in theory -- the implementation doesn't seem too complicated (in theory!).

• start zellij in a special daemon-mode on an SSH server as root (so it can create users and write ssh_configs into their homes)
• COMMAND= section in ssh_config forces incoming connections from hosts to the zellij daemon
• pick up incoming SSH connections from hosts and create users and port-forwardings, accordingly
• pick up incoming SSH connections from clients and forward them to their hosts, accordingly
• clean up users and port-forwardings after the host closes the connection

All of the heavy-weight and/or security-sensitive stuff (auth, transport-encryption, etc) is offloaded to SSH. At least it seams like it should only take a little bit of glue-code to implement a pretty awesome and useful functionality.

A little glue-code on one side for a pretty awesome and useful functionality on the other side.

Therefor I was thinking, maybe it would be worth the effort of turning it into a builtin feature, rather than having to create and maintain a fork, only for adding that one feature (like tmate does).

[Lockszmith-GH]

With your description, it sounds like this might be a viable plugin.

[baccenfutter]

As far as I can tell, this is currently not possible due to plugin limitations. In particular, filesystem access limitations.

[imsnif]

I tried to form a company around this at some point. Right now I'm concentrating on getting enough sponsorships from Zellij directly to cover my living costs, and once that's out of the way I'll likely circle back to this idea in one form or another.

[jgarte]

I think an open source solution for this would be great, similar to tmate where you can easily self-host a pairing session.