abalone

A simple Sinatra & hterm based web terminal.

Table of Contents

1. Overview
2. Configuration
   1. SSH
   2. Custom Login Command
3. jQuery plugin
4. Limitations

Overview

Simply exposes a login shell to a web browser. This is currently nowhere near to production quality, so don't actually use it.

It supports three methods for providing a shell:

1. Simply running the login binary and logging in as a system user. (default)
2. Using SSH to connect to localhost or a remote machine. This can be configured with credentials to automatically connect, or it can request a username and password from the end user.
3. Running custom command, which can be configured with arbitrary parameters.

Configuration

Abalone defaults to loading configuration from /etc/abalone/config.yaml. You can pass the path to another config file at the command line. In that file, you can set several options:

• :autoconnect
  • Set this to true if you'd like the session to start on page load and false if you'd like the user to click a Start Session button instead. Defaults to true.
• :port
  • Which port to run the server on.
  • Default value: 9000
• :bind
  • The hostname or IP address of the interface to listen on.
  • Default value: 0.0.0.0 (listen to all interfaces.)
• :bannerfile
  • File to display before login. This does not interpret special characters the way getty does.
  • true, false, or filename to display.
  • Default value: false, or /etc/issue.net if set to true.
• :welcome
  • A message to display prior to starting a session. This is on the overlay with the Start Session button. Pass a string of text, or a filename. HTML will be interpreted.
  • Default value: unset
• :logfile
  • The path of a file to log to.
  • Default value: Log only to STDERR. If you pass -l at the command line with no filename, it will log to /var/log/abalone.
• :timeout
  • Maximum number of seconds a session can last. The shell will be killed at the end of that time. For example, set it to 300 for shells that last for up to five minutes.
  • Default value: unset.
• :ttl
  • The number of seconds a session should last after disconnecting. If you reconnect within this grace period, you'll be reconnected to your session without interruption. This cannot yet restore the secondary terminal buffer, so if you're running something like Vim, you may have to run clear or reset after exiting to get your console sane again.
  • Note that :timeout takes precedence, so if your session times out, even during the :ttl grace period, it will be killed.
  • Default value: unset.
• One of :command or :ssh, exclusive.
  • The login method to use. Abalone can use login, SSH, or a custom command to start a shell. See configuration instructions below.
  • Default value: uses the login binary, with no configuration possible.

Configuring SSH

The following parameters may be used to configure SSH login. The :host setting is required. :user and :cert are optional. If :user is not set, then the user will be prompted for a login name, and if :cert is not set then the user will be prompted to log in with a password. If the SSH server is running on a non-standard port, you may specify that with the :port setting.

---
:ssh:
  :host: shellserver.example.com
  :user: centos
  :cert: /etc/abalone/centos.pem

Configuring a custom command

A custom command can be configured in several ways. If you just want to run a command without providing any options, the config file would look like:

---
:command: /usr/local/bin/run-container

Simple options

You can also allow the user to pass in a arbitrary options. These must be whitelisted. You can simply list allowed options in an Array:

---
:command: /usr/local/bin/run-container
:params: [ 'username', 'image' ]

The options will be passed to the command in this way, ignoring the option that was not whitelisted:

• http://localhost:9000/?username=bob&image=testing&invalid=value
• /usr/local/bin/run-container --username bob --image testing

Customized options

Finally, you can fully customize the options which may be passed in, including remapping them to command line arguments and filtering accepted values. In this case, :params must be a Hash.

---
:command: /usr/local/bin/run-container
:params:
  username:
  type:
    :values: ['demo', 'testing']
  image:
    :map: '--create-image'
    :values: [ 'ubuntu', 'rhel', /centos[5,6,7]/ ]

Notice that username has nothing on the right side. It will be treated exactly the same as username in the Simple options array above.

The image parameter is more complex though. It has two keys specified. Both are optional. If :map is set, then its value will be used when running the command. The :values key can be used to specify a list of valid values. Note that these can be specified as Strings or regular expressions.

The options in this case will be passed to the command like:

• An option is mapped to a different command line argument:
  • http://localhost:9000/?username=bob&image=centos6
  • /usr/local/bin/run-container --username bob --create-image centos6
• An option without a :map is passed directly through to the command:
  • http://localhost:9000/?username=bob&type=demo
  • /usr/local/bin/run-container --username bob --type demo
• Image name that doesn't pass validation is ignored:
  • http://localhost:9000/?username=bob&image=testing
  • /usr/local/bin/run-container --username bob
• Invalid options and values are ignored:
  • http://localhost:9000/?username=bob&image=testing&invalid=value
  • /usr/local/bin/run-container --username bob

jQuery Plugin

Abalone comes with a build in jQuery plugin that makes it very easy to use. You can attach the launcher to any element. If it's a block element, then a launcher button will be injected inside, and if it's inline then it will directly trigger the terminal.

See a demo of the launcher in action after installation by starting the server and browsing to http://localhost:9000/demo.html. Adjust the URL and port as needed.

The minimum external dependencies are jQuery and jQuery UI:

<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://code.jquery.com/ui/1.12.1/themes/base/jquery-ui.css">
<script src="https://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.12.4.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://code.jquery.com/ui/1.12.1/jquery-ui.js"></script>

To load and initialize the launcher, you'll need to load the CSS and Javascript from a running Abalone instance like below. Notice the full URL, including the port number. Alternatively, you can pull those from the repository and host them along with the rest of your HTML.

<link rel="stylesheet" href="http://localhost:9000/css/launcher.css">
<script src="http://localhost:9000/js/launcher.js"></script>

Then you'll simply declare one or more launchers on any element you choose. Note that you must pass in the server parameter. This should be the location of your Abalone server, including the port it's running on.

<script>
  $(document).ready(function() {

    $('pre.popup').AbaloneLauncher({
       label: "Try out a popup!",
       title: "Isn't this neat?",
      server: "http://localhost:9000",
    });

    $('pre.inline').AbaloneLauncher({
         label: "Try it out inline!",
        target: "inline",
        server: "http://localhost:9000",
    });

    $('pre.targeted').AbaloneLauncher({
         label: "Try it out!",
        target: "#abalone-shell",
      location: "se",
        server: "http://localhost:9000",
    });

    $('a#launcher').AbaloneLauncher({
      server: "http://localhost:9000",
      params: { "type": "demo", "uuid": generateUUID() },
    });

  });
</script>

Configuration Options

Option	Valid values	Default
location	ne, se, sw, nw	ne
label	String	Launch
title	String	Abalone Web Shell
target	popup, inline, tab, CSS selector of a container	popup
params	parameters to be passed to the server	{}
server	URL to the Abalone server, including port	null (required)
height	Integer	480
width	Integer	640

Limitations

This is super early in development and has not yet been battle tested.

Disclaimer

I take no liability for the use of this tool.

Contact

binford2k@gmail.com