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@TooTallNate
Created March 16, 2012 22:42
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Running a node.js REPL over `curl`
/**
* Requires node v0.7.7 or greater.
*
* To connect: $ curl -sSNT. localhost:8000
*/
var http = require('http')
, repl = require('repl')
, buf0 = new Buffer([0])
var server = http.createServer(function (req, res) {
res.setHeader('content-type', 'multipart/octet-stream')
res.write('Welcome to the Fun House\r\n')
repl.start({
prompt: 'curl repl> '
, input: req
, output: res
, terminal: false
, useColors: true
, useGlobal: false
})
// log
console.log(req.headers['user-agent'])
// hack to thread stdin and stdout
// simultaneously in curl's single thread
var iv = setInterval(function () {
res.write(buf0)
}, 100)
res.connection.on('end', function () {
clearInterval(iv)
})
})
server.listen(8000)
☮ ~ (master) ⚡ curl -sSNT. localhost:8000
Welcome to the Fun House
curl repl> process.platform
'darwin'
curl repl> process.arch
'x64'
curl repl> process.cwd()
'/Users/nrajlich'
curl repl> path
{ resolve: [Function],
normalize: [Function],
join: [Function],
relative: [Function],
dirname: [Function],
basename: [Function],
extname: [Function],
_makeLong: [Function] }
curl repl> ^C
☮ ~ (master) ⚡
@SamB
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SamB commented Aug 3, 2019

@mk-pmb Now you tell me, after I already looked that all those up!

@mk-pmb
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mk-pmb commented Aug 3, 2019

@SamB You're welcome! :-)

@coderofsalvation
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coderofsalvation commented Jan 28, 2021

interesting, it works fine when running with the http-module.
However, when running as express middleware, the null-byte(s) in setInterval are printed as spaces in curl output.
Any idea what express might be adding here?

@mk-pmb
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mk-pmb commented Jan 28, 2021

Sounds like express, indeed, sends null bytes. Or maybe you're using a different terminal, or different settings so that now they're rendered as space, rather than ignored. Anyway, you can use stdbuf -i0 -o0 -e0 tr -d '\000' to filter them out.

@coderofsalvation
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coderofsalvation commented Jan 28, 2021

ah thanks, that makes sense.
In the meantime I've also discovered polka, an express alternative which doesn't abstracts the native http req & res away.
I've quickly put this together for re-use:

https://github.com/coderofsalvation/middleware-remoteshell

Hopefully this allows me and others to route all stderr/stdout into a tmux mega-dashboard :)

@mostafa8026
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mostafa8026 commented Mar 28, 2022

With nginx as a proxy, I can't connect to my repl service using curl command. It hangs if I use -T option with stdin:

$ curl  -sSNT . https://dev.mysite.com/api/job-item/replhttp
curl: (56) OpenSSL SSL_read: Connection reset by peer, errno 104

$ curl -vsSNT. https://dev.mysite.com/api/job-item/replhttp -I
*   Trying 123.456.78.9:443...
* Connected to dev.mysite.com (123.456.78.9) port 443 (#0)
* ALPN, offering http/1.1
* successfully set certificate verify locations:
*   CAfile: /home/mostafa/anaconda3/ssl/cacert.pem
  CApath: none
* TLSv1.3 (OUT), TLS handshake, Client hello (1):
* TLSv1.3 (IN), TLS handshake, Server hello (2):
* TLSv1.3 (IN), TLS handshake, Encrypted Extensions (8):
* TLSv1.3 (IN), TLS handshake, Certificate (11):
* TLSv1.3 (IN), TLS handshake, CERT verify (15):
* TLSv1.3 (IN), TLS handshake, Finished (20):
* TLSv1.3 (OUT), TLS change cipher, Change cipher spec (1):
* TLSv1.3 (OUT), TLS handshake, Finished (20):
* SSL connection using TLSv1.3 / TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384
* ALPN, server accepted to use http/1.1
* Server certificate:
*  subject: CN=dev.mysite.com
*  start date: Feb 16 12:05:49 2022 GMT
*  expire date: May 17 12:05:48 2022 GMT
*  subjectAltName: host "dev.mysite.com" matched cert's "dev.mysite.com"
*  issuer: C=US; O=Let's Encrypt; CN=R3
*  SSL certificate verify ok.
> PUT /api/job-item/replhttp HTTP/1.1
> Host: dev.mysite.com
> User-Agent: curl/7.71.1
> Accept: */*
> Transfer-Encoding: chunked
> Expect: 100-continue
>
* TLSv1.3 (IN), TLS handshake, Newsession Ticket (4):
* TLSv1.3 (IN), TLS handshake, Newsession Ticket (4):
* old SSL session ID is stale, removing
* Mark bundle as not supporting multiuse
< HTTP/1.1 100 Continue
HTTP/1.1 100 Continue

* OpenSSL SSL_read: Connection reset by peer, errno 104
* Closing connection 0
curl: (56) OpenSSL SSL_read: Connection reset by peer, errno 104

Any idea?

@mk-pmb
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mk-pmb commented Mar 28, 2022

nginx will ensure it will behave itself, as in, it will strictly speak standard HTTP to your web app. This is a protective feature. The idea in this thread uses a non-standard protocol and disguises it as HTTP, very thinly. The disguise breaks as soon as you insert a component that expects real HTTP.

Edit: You might get away with HTTP UPGRADE somehow, but it will probably be a bit more complicated.

@mostafa8026
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Do you have any idea about how to UPGRADE it?

@KostyaTretyak
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On Ubuntu 20.04, curl takes a lot of CPU resources (more then 25%) to run this example.

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