Feature idea - open ssh via external tool

[flosch-dev]

not sure if this is feasible, but maybe it would be nice to open ssh sessions via external tool like windows terminal instead of VScode build in terminal.

[kaelemc]

Can use ssh protocol handler for this. I know that SecureCRT and PuTTY can register to it. Off the top of my head not sure how that'd work with Windows terminal.

[FloSch62]

It all depends a bit which tool is used. Some tools do not offer args to initiate a ssh connection. For example for MobaXterm I have not found a possibility. What I can think about, also with a look on other OSes as windows, it to make it freely configurable with vars like:

ExternalSSH: "C:\putty.exe -ssh ${user}@${host}"

Means a user need to provide the path to its external ssh tool a create the args, while the extension provides the container ip and the user...

[flosch-dev]

running native ssh client with regular openssh args should be fine. In windows you can change default terminal program so that windows terminal is used.
Config vars might be even more flexible, but native openssh should be available on all OS today

[kaelemc]

It all depends a bit which tool is used. Some tools do not offer args to initiate a ssh connection. For example for MobaXterm I have not found a possibility. What I can think about, also with a look on other OSes as windows, it to make it freely configurable with vars like:

ExternalSSH: "C:\putty.exe -ssh ${user}@${host}"

Means a user need to provide the path to its external ssh tool a create the args, while the extension provides the container ip and the user...

I think I agree with this method. It's much more flexible and good for other OSes.

[asadarafat]

Dumping my investigation on this topic:
The idea is to create url and include ${user}@${host} and that url translated using plink.

Reference:

• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3057576/how-to-launch-an-application-from-a-browser
• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/80650/how-do-i-register-a-custom-url-protocol-in-windows
• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/70009351/using-plink-to-run-a-command

[kaelemc]

I have some rough implementation currently, the placeholders are working fine for user, hostname etc.

The issue is that most users are using Remote SSH, so we need to do some port forwarding or SSH tunneling for this to be useful.

Also when using Remote-SSH, we are forced to use the protocol handler as we can't execute commands on the clientside.