# teleconsole **Repository Path**: qmutz/teleconsole ## Basic Information - **Project Name**: teleconsole - **Description**: Command line tool to share your UNIX terminal and forward local TCP ports to people you trust. - **Primary Language**: Go - **License**: Apache-2.0 - **Default Branch**: master - **Homepage**: None - **GVP Project**: No ## Statistics - **Stars**: 0 - **Forks**: 0 - **Created**: 2021-05-18 - **Last Updated**: 2021-05-18 ## Categories & Tags **Categories**: Uncategorized **Tags**: None ## README # Teleconsole [Teleconsole](https://www.teleconsole.com/) is a free service to share your terminal session with people you trust. Your friends can join via a command line using SSH or by using their browser. Use it when two parties are separated by NAT and you cannot connect via SSH directly. ### Installing Download the latest binaries for your platform [here](https://github.com/gravitational/teleconsole/releases) or you can build it from source. Quick installation for the impatient: ``` curl https://www.teleconsole.com/get.sh | sh ``` ### Quick Start Simply type `./teleconsole` in your terminal and this is what you will see: ``` > teleconsole Starting local SSH server on localhost... Requesting a disposable SSH proxy for ekontsevoy... Checking status of the SSH tunnel... Your Teleconsole ID: 29382923a870075324233c490831a7 WebUI for this session: https://teleconsole.com/s/29382923a870075324233c490831a7 To stop broadcasting, exit current shell by typing 'exit' or closing the window. ``` Teleconsole will launch a new shell session and print the unique session ID of `29382923a870075324233c490831a7` which you need to share with your friend. Your friend can join in either by clicking on a link, or by typing: ``` > teleconsole join 29382923a870075324233c490831a7 ``` Now you are both using the same terminal session running on your machine, even if both of you are on separate networks separated by NAT. You can watch a [quick video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8CnrnquS_s&vq=hd1080&rel=0) of how this works. Here's the simplified animation: ![Teleconsole animation](docs/full-screen-teleconsole.gif) ### WARNING Please understand that by running `teleconsole` you are virtually giving the keyboard to anyone with a link. We made the session IDs sufficiently hard to guess, but **you are still running an SSH server accessible via public Internet** during the Teleconsole session. ### Ending the Session When you're done with the session, make sure to close it (stop `teleconsole` process) either by typing `exit` in the terminal or simply closing it. When Teleconsole exits, the outbound SSH tunnel is closed and your machine is no longer accessible. ### Port Forwarding Let's say you are developing a web application and it is currently running on your `localhost:5000`. You can make it accessible by your friends if you forward port `5000` to them: ``` > teleconsole -f localhost:5000 ``` When your friends join this session, they will see something like this: ``` ATTENTION: ekontsevoy has invited you to access port 5000 on their machine via localhost:9000 ``` So now your friend can click on `http://localhost:9000` to access your application. Bear in mind, Teleconsole is just an SSH server, this means your friend can request port forwarding without your help, just like a regular SSH client would: ``` > teleconsole -f 9000:localhost:5000 join ``` ## How does it work? Teleconsole is built on top of [Gravitational Teleport](http://gravitational.com/teleport) which is a clustered SSH server with built-in SSH bastion/proxy. Both projects are open source and hosted [here on GitHub](https://github.com/gravitational/teleport/blob/master/README.md). What happens when you type `teleconsole`? 1. It generates unique single-use SSH credentials and launches an SSH server on localhost. Then Teleconsole logs into itself, an equivalent of `ssh localhost`. 2. SSH credentials are POSTed via HTTPS to a free anonymous SSH proxy on https://teleconsole.com. 3. The server creates a single-use disposable instance of Teleport SSH proxy, which is trusted by the `teleconsole` SSH server running on your machine. 4. Your local `teleconsole` SSH server creates an outbound SSH tunnel to the disposable Teleport proxy running on https://teleconsole.com. The proxy now acts as a bridge connecting the outside world to your machine. And here is what happens when you type `teleconsole join session-id`:

teleconsole requests the anonymous proxy for SSH key to session-id via HTTPS.
It uses those keys to SSH into the proxy.
The proxy forwards the connection through the tunnel created in step 3 to your machine.

![Teleconsole Diagram](docs/teleconsole-diagram-v2.png) ### CLI Reference Typing `teleconsole help` gets you: ``` Usage: teleconsole Teleconsole allows you to start a new shell session and invite your friends into it. Simply close the session to stop sharing. Flags: -f host:port Invite joining parties to connect to host:port -L spec Request port forwarding when joining an existing session -insecure When set, the client will trust invalid SSL certifates -v Verbose logging -vv Extra verbose logging (debug mode) -s host:port Teleconsole server address [teleconsole.com] Commands: help Print this help join [session-id] Join active session Examples: > teleconsole -f 5000 Starts a shared SSH session, also letting joining parties access TCP port 5000 on your machine. > teleconsole -f gravitational.com:80 Starts a shared SSH session, forwarding TCP port 80 to joining parties. They will be able to visit http://gravitational.com using your machine as a proxy. > teleconsole -L 5000:gravitational.com:80 join Joins the existing session requesting to forward gravitational.com:80 to local port 5000. Made by Teleport http://goteleport.com ``` ### Uninstalling Close any running `teleconsole` processes. Execute `which teleconsole` and remove the single `teleconsole` binary. ## Support for Private SSH Bastions Some people may be uncomfortable using publicly accessible SSH bastion on https://teleconsole.com They can do the same thing by setting up a [Teleport](http://goteleport.com) deployment on their own server. In fact, Teleport supports many more features, including session recording and replay, `scp` and is compatible with OpenSSH client. ## Roadmap Before open sourcing it, we have been using Teleconsole with close friends quite a bit. So far the top feature requests are: 1. Read-only sessions: this would allow you to broadcast only the picture of your terminal. Port forwarding in this mode would be disabled. 2. Ability to see who's viewing your session. 3. Additional password auth per session. What do **you** think we should add next? Let us know: `info@goteleport.com` ## Building From Source See [BUILDING](BUILDING.md) ## Who Built Teleconsole? Teleconsole is an easy to use demo of Server Access in [Teleport](http://goteleport.com), a unified access plane created by [Teleport](https://goteleport.com). Teleport allows engineers and security professionals to unify access for SSH servers, Kubernetes clusters, web applications, and databases across all environments. For more info, drop us an email: [info@goteleport.com](mailto:info@goteleport.com)