What advantage does this have over running ssh normally on my terminal, or putty?
Not being sarcastic, just genuinely curious about the rational of this application.
Most recently, I was able to rebook an upcoming flight in Sabre (a travel agent's reservation terminal) from an internet kiosk in the Hong Kong subway. It ran a very weird kiosk-mode browser based at least in part on IE 6.0, but I was still able to securely [2] open a terminal session on my server.
[1] http://code.google.com/p/shellinabox/
[2] I have an SSL certificate for my shellinabox vhost, which protects both the Javascript client code and the terminal communications; while I do have to trust that the web browser is properly validating the SSL certificate, it's pretty much the most secure solution possible that doesn't involve carrying around my own hardware.
- Easier to run on your 'mom's computer'
- Easier to get it to work on ipod/ipad without downloading the app.
- May avoid the ssh-key annoying stuff on different servers. (For instance, you've got a vps somewhere.. you can just login there to access your stuff; it makes it easier to associate which ssh is which).
- For device with only browsers (google laptop for instance)
- To have *everything* in the browsers; emails, todolist, consoles, etc.
- To make it easier to add some goodies; I.e. you've got the tab open, but you can bind some javascript stuff to ease your workflow. Way easier to write a chrome extension than modify Putty.
- Run it from school or jobs that need administrative access to do trivial things. (I.e. One could use emacs from his browser if he couldn't install it on his computer).
Also, there's compliance (Gate One can be configured to log everything every user does--even to a central log server), the awesome bookmark manager, and then there's the fact that it is pretty much your only option if using a Chromebook :).
Side note: Gate One also has an interesting feature in that you can kill the Gate One daemon, start it back up, and everyone's sessions will be restored. It does this by way of the dtach program. This feature is actually the groundwork for some big things coming in the future for Gate One. Features that will likely make the front page again =)
-- Dan McDougall - Author of Gate One