vscode-big-dig-remote-file-demo

This is a demo to see what is possible with respect to extending VS Code to support remote file editing.

How It Works

The goal of this extension is to simulate connecting to a remote directory, using a fuzzy search to find files in that directory, and then open them for reading in VS Code. (Ideally, it would be for editing, but that is going to be a separate demo that requires ExpanDrive.)

To introduce the UI for the remote connection dialog and fuzzy search, we use the technique introduced by the vs-code-preview-html demo that uses the vscode.previewHtml API for rendering and a WebSocket for communicating between the host extension and the UI.

To connect and communicate with a remote server, we use the Big Dig library. (Note that the server must run on some sort of *nix system because it runs /usr/bin/find.) This starts a remote server that supports two RPC methods named do-file-search and get-file-contents that are used by the fuzzy search UI.

Developing This Extension

In addition to the normal npm install stuff, you must also run file-opener-ui/build-extension-ui.js when building the extension for the first time and any time you make a change in the file-opener-ui directory.

For testing, it is easiest to use localhost as your "remote host." You will also need a public/private key pair, so we recommend creating a special one for testing that does not require a passphrase to avoid getting prompted for the passphrase while testing:

ssh-keygen -f ~/.ssh/test_id_rsa -q -N ''
cat ~/.ssh/test_id_rsa.pub >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

Once you have created this key pair and stored it in ~/.ssh/authorized_keys, now you can run the extension in debug mode just like any other extension.

Running The Extension

Once you have created ~/.ssh/test_id_rsa as described above and you have the extension installed, choose Big Dig remote file opener demo from the command palette, which will open the connection dialog in its own tab. The default values should work, but you are free to change them if you need to:

You can hit enter or click the CONNECT button to connect. Assuming the connection is successful, you should be able to type a file name into the text box and click on the search results to open the files and see their contents:

Note that the search logic is extremely simple and inefficient because this is just a demo, so don't be surprised if it isn't very responsive.

Using a True Remote Connection

If you are interested in connecting to a machine that is actually remote, check out the source code for this extension on a remote machine and run npm install. You will have to modify the inputs to the connection dialog as follows:

• Change the Host to the hostname of your remote machine.
• Change Private Key to point to the key you normally use to connect to that machine (most likely, this is ~/.ssh/id_rsa).
• Modify Server Command to refer to the absolute path of vs-code-preview-html/server/main.js on the remote machine.
• Change the Search Directory to the directory on the remote machine that you wish to search.

With the dialog properly populated, you should be able to connect and search just as you did with localhost. Note that if your remote server requires you to 2fac, the extension will provide the appropriate prompt.

Troubleshooting

Instead of specifying node as the executable in the Search Command, you may need to specify the absolute path to it, such as /usr/local/bin/node.