Eternal Terminal (ET) Documentation

EternalTerminal operates using three distinct processes to provide reconnectable terminal sessions:

1. et: The client-side process running on the local machine.
2. etterminal: The process that runs as the user on the remote machine and hosts the actual terminal session.
3. etserver: The server-side process that manages connections and bridges users to their terminals.

Authentication is handled via SSH, while the etserver process provides the mechanism for session persistence and reconnection.

Install EternalTerminal on openSUSE using zypper.

zypper ar -f obs://network
zypper ref
zypper in EternalTerminal

The easiest way to install the et client on macOS is via Homebrew. If you want the etserver daemon to launch automatically on every boot, you must configure the launchd plist based on your architecture (Apple Silicon vs x86). Alternatively, you can use MacPorts.

# Using Homebrew
brew install et

# On m1 (Apple Silicon) Macs, configure daemon:
sudo sed 's:/usr/local/bin/etserver:/opt/homebrew/bin/etserver:g' ../init/launchd/homebrew.mxcl.et.plist | sudo tee /Library/LaunchDaemons/homebrew.mxcl.et.plist
sudo launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/homebrew.mxcl.et.plist

# On x86 Macs, configure daemon:
sudo cp ../init/launchd/homebrew.mxcl.et.plist /Library/LaunchDaemons/homebrew.mxcl.et.plist
sudo launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/homebrew.mxcl.et.plist

# Using MacPorts
sudo port install et

Reverse port forwarding allows you to expose a port on the remote server to a port on your local client.

Use the -r or --reversetunnel flag with the et command. The syntax is source:destination, where source is the port on the server and destination is the port on the client.

Unix Socket Forwarding: You can forward Unix sockets by using the syntax ENV_VAR_NAME:/var/run/example.sock. This creates a temporary file on the server and forwards it to the specified path on the client, setting the path to the value of ENV_VAR_NAME on the client.

Install eternalterminal using the FreeBSD package manager.

pkg install eternalterminal

If you have a local checkout of the repository, you can use Nix flakes to develop or build the project. nix develop provides a shell containing the package inputs and developer tools required for CMake work on NixOS.

nix flake show path:.
nix develop path:.
nix build path:. --no-link

Run the et-server container with the following command to map necessary ports and mount host system files required for authentication and user management.

Requirements:

• Ports 2022 and 2222 must be open on the server host.
• The container starts an sshd server to initiate the et-server handshake.
• Your SSH client must be able to connect to the container's sshd, not the host's sshd.
• A standard SSH connection like ssh -p 2222 user@host must work successfully.

$ docker run -it --rm -p 2022:2022 -p 2222:22 \
    -v /etc/ssh:/etc/ssh \
    -v /etc/passwd:/etc/passwd \
    -v /etc/shadow:/etc/shadow \
    -v /etc/group:/etc/group \
    -v /home:/home \
    et-server

To build from source on other Linux distributions, install the required dependencies (e.g., boost-devel, libsodium-devel, protobuf-devel, cmake, etc.) and follow the standard CMake build process.

git clone --recurse-submodules --depth 1 https://github.com/MisterTea/EternalTerminal.git
cd EternalTerminal
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ../
make
sudo make install

Install et on Ubuntu using the official PPA.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jgmath2000/et
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install et

On NixOS, use flakes to import the bundled NixOS module. This manages the package, /etc/et.cfg, and the etserver service.

{
  inputs.et.url = "github:MisterTea/EternalTerminal";

  outputs = { nixpkgs, et, ... }: {
    nixosConfigurations.my-host = nixpkgs.lib.nixosSystem {
      system = "x86_64-linux";
      modules = [
        et.nixosModules.default
        ({ ... }: {
          services.eternalTerminal = {
            enable = true;
            openFirewall = true;
            port = 2022;
            settings.Networking.bind_ip = "0.0.0.0";
          };
        })
      ];
    };
  };
}