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.
Related
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.
I have been working remotely with Putty and pgAdmin III to manipulate a PostgreSQL database on a Linux server, but now need to do some heavier lifting to modify Perl and PHP scripts that are used to parse data input files which are submitted to our website.
I would prefer something with robust debugging capabilities. I know (and love) Eclipse for Java, but don't know if it's an option for Perl/PHP and remote access? Other suggestions? It's the "remote" part that has me stuck...
Thanks!
Have you tried Padre?
http://padre.perlide.org/trac/wiki/Features/RemoteEditing
If you are comfortable with using Emacs, you can use cperl-mode and tramp to access the remote files you want to edit. There is support for the Perl debugger (cperl-db), but that probably won't seamlessly for a machine accessed via SSH. Another project you might want to look at is geben.
Update: Apparently, Emacs' debugger interface is quite well-integrated with tramp.
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.
I use Emacs remotely using X-Server in a Windows client and Linux server. I noticed that I can halt it using ctrl-z and then type fg 1 to get it working again. Is there some way that I could get it to halt on the machine that I am on, and then log into a different machine and start where I left off? When I start a new ssh session, the emacs job isn't associated to my terminal. There must be someway to "steal" it.
Also, maybe there's an Emacs feature that will do basically the same thing. However, I think closing and re-opening all my files and buffers would take quite a while.
Expanding on the idea of using emacsclient, you can look at what what someone did to solve the problem of editing a file from a different machine than where (s)he started running Emacs.
As of Emacs 23, you can run emacsclient in terminal windows using the -nw option.
Other solutions you might want to try are to use:
gnu screen
vnc
For years I used screen to "attach" and "detach" from a virtual terminal that sounds like your usage model. If you have the ability to use graphics... vnc is really great, just do your work in a vnc session and connect to it any machine.
And your last idea is already implemented by the package desktop (which is bundled with Emacs). Take a look at the wiki page for session management, which includes other alternatives to desktop, as well as add-ons for desktop to lazily load files.
You can run emacs as a server, and use emacsclient to connect to it. You can open multiple connections to the same emacs server, via ttys or X11.
When doing this, C-X C-C will close your connection, and leave the server running.
A simple way to do this by invoking emacs as follows. This will connect to the server if one is running, or create one.
emacsclient --alternate-editor="" -c
Sometimes I will be at work and have to run out the door leaving my Emacs session as it was. Later, I will open an Emacs instance to the same machine (usually using remote SSH) and find that I have files open in Emacs. Now the good news. Emacs allows you to "steal" those files using M-x recover-this-file. I recommend one of Trey's solutions if you can plan ahead. If not, you can use this recover file technique to keep progress moving.