I love emacsclient. It allows me to use a single Emacs frame for all my editing, also when programs want to open an editor (i.e. export EDITOR=emacsclient).
I'd like to have it work like this with virtual machines, too. I can use tramp to edit remote files with Emacs in my single-frame setup, and it works very well, but it's not enough. When I invoke git commit or sudoedit, I'll have to use the crappy terminal-based editor that happens to be installed on the remote machine.
So, is there anything like emacsclient that works across multiple machines?
Speculation: If you can ssh from the VM back to your local machine then the VM could probably invoke emacsclient on your local machine, with the appropriate tramp prefix to the remote file? Set up a script for that, and configure your remote EDITOR environment variable to match.
It could be you can do more with TRAMP than you think. First off, you may have noticed that /sudo: doesn't work for remote boxes, but TRAMP allows you to proxy to a remote box and then use any supported protocol, so in effect you can use /sudo: on a remote box. See tramp-default-proxies-alist.
You mentioned invoking git commit on a remote box. Have you considered using one of the Emacs git interfaces such as magit? They will work through TRAMP as well.
Related
I have VSCode set up with the "Remote - SSH" extension, and I am able to run a local VSCode window as the face of a full remote environment. Really cool.
However, I would also like to be able to set up a local VSCode environment which loads files from my local filesystem but runs them on a remote Python interpreter (via an SSH connection).
I am hoping I can run all the regular interactive Python REPL stuff using the remote kernel (e.g. show variables, etc). It seems like I should be able to somehow add a remote kernel and then select it via "Python: Select Interpreter", but I can't figure out how.
In the past I was able to configure such a setup in JupyterLab using the "remote_ikernel" package.
Is this possible in VSCode? I've found tons of documentation on the full remote setup, but haven't located information on this hybrid kind of set up.
I found a related bug report which discusses mixing local and remote filesystems (not interpreters).
I suspect that the same difficulties it describes for filesystems may be similar reasons for why local files can not be easily fed into remote interpreters.
The full thread is here for reference:
https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-remote-release/issues/706
The specific quote:
Having a mixed workspace would require that a workspace extension can be active both locally and remotely. Currently an extension can only be active once, either locally or remotely. So this is currently not possible and we have no plans to support this.
The recommendation is to have separate windows open for the local and remote workspace.
So it sound like this is a feature that is not currently supported.
TRAMP (Transparent Remote Access, Multiple Protocols) is a package for editing remote files, similar to AngeFtp or efs. Whereas the others use FTP to connect to the remote host and to transfer the files, TRAMP uses a remote shell connection (rlogin, telnet, ssh). It can transfer the files using rcp or a similar program, or it can encode the file contents (using uuencode or base64) and transfer them right through the shell connection.
It seems like as of now there is at least one similar package to Tramp mode for VSCode. I couldn't directly find in the documentation how you would open a remote shell inside VSCode, but it seems like it would have to be possible given the rest of the plugin.
https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/remote/ssh
https://code.visualstudio.com/blogs/2019/10/03/remote-ssh-tips-and-tricks
I have a terminal menu in VSCode that I can open up and directly ssh to stuff, so that seems to cover both sides of the "Tramp" mode usage
You can use FUSE for a somewhat similar effect. It's not editor specific, but mounts remote file systems via SSH, FTP and whatnot directly to your local file system so you can use it with any Editor.
You didn't mention on what operating system you, but here's the link to the version for macOS: https://osxfuse.github.io
My school (UCSB) has us use PuTTY to remotely access our CS account that's ran on the school's server. Whenever I attempt to use the school's emacs via PuTTY, it's extremely tedious because it's all in text user interface. I do have an option to use Xming to access the GUI Emacs, but that's incredibly slow since it still relies on the server's emacs. So now I'm fed up of relying on using WinSCP as a text-editor (I know it isn't suppose to be a text-editor) on my laptop, and want to use emacs without the terrible interface or speed. I finally went to the GNU website to download a local copy of emacs on my laptop. However I can't do anything with it unless I constantly transfer my files from the school's server to my laptop for editing, and vice-versa for compiling, which can be very tedious.
So, is there a way I can use PuTTY to access the files on my school's account and then have them opened using my local emacs? Or is there any other ideas or tools to help me with my situation?
TRAMP would be the way to go. In order for TRAMP to use PuTTY by default do this
(setq tramp-default-method "plinkx")
After that you can access the files or use dired on your remote host by using paths like
/name_of_Putty_session:/path/on/remote/host
I used to be a comfortable emacs user and for close to 10 years I completely got away from using emacs (I know its a shame) but I have a wage memory of setting something in .emacs to open remote files in a server via local emacs.
Just to make the scenario clear:
Login to a remote server (ssh) -> emacs somefileInRemoreServer.file &
File get open using the local version of emacs.
My questions are:
Is this possible?
how can I accomplish this?
I have both mac and ubuntu on mac I use Aquamacs. It would be a great help if I can get instructions on both versions.
I'm not sure whether you want to ssh prior to using emacs or ssh using (in) emacs.
If you want to let emacs do all the work check out the links added by phils, TRAMP mode is the way to go for remote editing IN emacs.
If you want to use ssh to mount a remote filesystem (resulting in "local" editing with emacs) you should check out sshfs (man, wiki).
I think it comes with pretty much any of the current distros (or can be installed easily otherwise). It is a fuse extension which allows to mount a remote directory to a local one without any further requirements on the remote side than ssh.
I do like TRAMP for editing one or two files but using sshfs is great for working on a whole project directory which is placed remotely and which you do not want to sync using another method.
On a daily basis I:
use multiple workstations running either Linux, Windows, or MacOS X
edit files on additional Linux hosts that are not any of the workstations mentioned above
The only common element here is that the internet connects all of these hosts: workstations and servers. I can keep all of the config files in sync on my workstations too and can run an X server on all of them. What's the right way of running emacs? I don't want to sacrifice any features.
In my ideal world I can type 'emacs foo.txt' on a remote host and some magic happens via X forwarding to display the file in my workstation's existing emacs session.
Non-solutions
tramp: when I'm manipulating a remote host an editor is just part of my workflow. I need a terminal open so I can run other commands quickly. tramp is all wrong for this.
ncurses emacs: sucks, I want the graphical kind
If you don't have a positive answer to my question, please don't just guess. Thanks.
Have you tried tramp with eshell? You can "cd /remote.host:/some/path" and edit files from there, and if you type a non-built-in, it fires up a ssh pipe to run it. Quite slick.
I fail to see why tramp is not a solution. You can edit using tramp, and do whatever you need in a terminal using xterm+ssh.
Well, if you can setup X clients on your Windows and OSX boxes, you should be able to run an X version of emacs on any of those platforms and set the display back to your workstation. That would give you your nice WIMP interface.
However there are a couple of solutions to keeping a terminal open to the same box. One is to just telnet into it twice. Once for your emacs session, and once for a shell.
The other option of course is to use meta-x shell to bring up a shell buffer inside of emacs. A true emacs guru prefers to run their OS inside of emacs, rather than the other way around. :-)
The approach I use is based on source controlling the Emacs scripts and important common files (using Git). This gives me a consistent code base so I don't have to remember which host has which script or file (or version of what I'm looking for). Git is particularly well suited to supporting this mechanism and I've pretty much got in the habit of updating the master origin repo daily. Within the scripts (both Emacs and bash shell scripts) I use machine tailored code to handle local requirements. This system has been in place now for well over a year and I find it to be quite effective. This is a technique I've seen recommended for some number of years. I found it clunky with CVS and Subversion but git feels tailored for the job. That said, I like the solution you selected as a complimentary tool and look forward to adding that to the mix.