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local-open

Do you sometimes open webpages from the terminal, but work in a headless VM or one with some crappy X11 environment? Wish you could just open those webpages in your much nicer base machine browser instead? Then local-open is for you! (Yes, this scratches a very specific itch =P)

how it works

Simply put, when you provide a URL to local-open, it issues the appropriate open command on your base machine through SSH.

If the URL is specific to the current machine (contains localhost or 127.0.0.1), a domain name which is reachable from the base machine will be substituted, if possible. local-open is also smart enough to know when you're not in a SSH session, and will just open the URL on the current machine in those cases.

OSX and Linux is supported.

setup

  • Download the local-open script and place it somewhere in your PATH on the remote machine. For example, run this from ~/bin/:

    curl -L -O http://github.com/suan/local-open/raw/master/local-open

  • Set the desired config variables, either by exporting them in your .bashrc or by setting them in a ~/.localopenrc file. These are the available options:

    • LOCAL_OPEN_PORT: Port for the SSH connection to the base machine, e.g. 1999. Defaults to 22
    • LOCAL_OPEN_HOST: Host for the SSH connection to the base machine. Defaults to "localhost"
    • LOCAL_OPEN_USER: Username for the SSH connection to the base machine. Defaults to the current SSH session's username.
    • LOCAL_OPEN_CMD: The "open" command to use on the base machine, e.g. "open" or "xdg-open". Defaults to "open".
    • ALT_LOCALHOST: The domain name which will replace localhost or 127.0.0.1 in URLs. Defaults to the hostname of the current machine.

  • If your base machine is inaccessible from the remote one, you need to setup a reverse SSH tunnel. The below section has instructions.

  • Now, when you do local-open <URL>, the URL will be opened on your base machine's browser!

  • If you like, you could create an xdg-open function in your .bashrc or equivalent which calls local-open instead for URLs. This would make any program which uses xdg-open automatically use local-open. (Some people don't like overriding system commands like that so I've left that out)

setting up a reverse SSH tunnel

If your base machine is inaccessible from the remote one, you need to establish a reverse SSH tunnel from the base machine to the remote one. I highly recommend using AutoSSH, which will monitor and keep your tunnel alive (available in all package managers and homebrew). You could set such a tunnel to run on startup. To open a reverse tunnel on the remote host's port 1999, with port 1998 as the "monitoring" port:

autossh -M 1998 -f -N -R 1999:localhost:22 user@remotehost

Without autossh:

ssh -f -N -R 1999:localhost:22 user@remotehost

fugitive.vim integration

To make local-open work when you use fugitive.vim commands such as :Gbrowse, ensure the following exists in your ~/.gitconfig:

[web]
  browser = local-open
[browser "local-open"]
	cmd = local-open

hub integration

To use local-open when you perform commands such as git browse, you need to set the $BROWSER environment variable. Put this in your ~/.bashrc or equivalent:

export BROWSER="local-open"

bugs, etc.

Please goto the project page at http://github.com/suan/local-open to report bugs, request features, or if you want to browse the code.