How to create web based terminal using xterm.js to ssh into a system on local network

Question

I came across this awesome library xterm.js which is also the base for Visual Studio Code's terminal. I have a very general question.

I want to access a machine(ssh into a machine ) on a local network through a web based terminal(which is out of network, may be on a aws server). I was able to do this in a local network successfully but I could not reach to a conclusion to do it from Internet-->local network .

As an example - An aws server running the application on ip 54.123.11.98 which has a GUI with a button to open terminal. I want to open terminal of a local machine which is in a local network somewhere behind some public ip on local ip 192.168.1.7.

Can the above example be achieved using some sort of solutions where i can use xterm.js so that I don't have to go for building a web based terminal? What are the major security concerns I should keep in mind while exposing the terminals this way ?

I was thinking in line with using a fixed intermediate server between AWS and local network ip and use some sort of reverse ssh tunnel process to do this but I am not sure if this is the right way or could there be a more simple/better way to achieve this.

I know digital ocean, google cloud , they all do this but they have to connect to a computer which has public ip while I have a machine in a local network. I don't really want to configure router to do any kind of setup .

Answer 1

After a bit of research here is working code.

Libraries:

1) https://socket.io/

This library is used for transmit package from client to server.

2) https://github.com/staltz/xstream

This library is used for terminal view.

3) https://github.com/mscdex/ssh2

This is the main library which is used for establishing a connection with your remote server.

Step 1: Install Library 3 into your project folder

Step 2: Start from node side create a server.js file for open socket

Step 3: Connection client socket to node server (both are in local machine)

The tricky logic is how to use socket and ssh2.

On emission of socket you need to trigger an SSH command using the ssh2 library. On response of the ssh2 library (from server) you need to transmit the socket package to the client. That's it.

Click here to find an example.

That example will have these files & folders:

Type    Name ------------ FILE    server.js FILE    package.json FOLDER  src FOLDER  xtream 

First you need to configure your server IP, user and password or cert file on server.js and just run node server.js.

P.S.: Don't forget to run npm install

Let me know if you have any questions!