anytermd(1)

✨ anytermd(1) — the Gen Z Manual ✨

💖 NAME

okay bestie, anytermd is a terminal-emulating HTTP daemon 🦋 — it puts a whole terminal window on a web page so you can run command-line programs even when HTTP is literally the only door you've got 🚪✨

🌸 SYNOPSIS

anytermd [--command arg] [--device arg] [--baudrate arg] [--port arg]
[--user arg] [--auth arg] [--charset arg] [--foreground] [--diff]
[--nodiff] [--max-sessions arg] [--max-http-connections arg]
[--local-only] [--name arg]

anytermd --help

💅 DESCRIPTION

okay so Anyterm gives you a terminal window right on a web page 🖥️💜 the vibe is you can run command-line programs on a machine even when HTTP is the only way in. main character energy, no cap 👑

here's how the whole thing fits together 🧚: you've got some Javascript on a web page, an XmlHttpRequest channel on standard ports talking back to the server, an HTTP proxy (like Apache's mod_proxy) 🌐, and the Anyterm daemon itself. the daemon, anytermd, uses a pseudo-terminal to chat with a shell or other app, and it does the terminal emulation too 🎀. key presses get picked up by the Javascript and sent to the daemon 🍓, and changes to the emulated screen go from the daemon back to the Javascript, which updates the display ✨

performance is lowkey pretty reasonable 🫶, and you can use SSL to lock the connection down 🔒

⚠️ bestie, for security reasons it is highly recommended that anytermd NOT be exposed directly to the Internet! do not do it 😭 see the SECURITY section below.

🎀 OPTIONS

default values are shown in parentheses () ✨

• -c, --command arg (=/bin/bash) — the command you want to run inside the terminal 💻
• -d, --device arg — the device to connect to, like a serial port 🔌
• -b, --baudrate arg (=9600) — baud rate for the serial port device 📡
• -p, --port arg (=8080) — the port number it listens on 🦋
• -u, --user arg — the user to run as 🧑‍💻
• -a, --auth arg (=none) — authorisation, which is none, null, or trivial 🔐
• -s, --charset arg (=ascii) — the character set 🔤
• -f, --foreground — run in the foreground instead of backgrounding 👀
• --diff — only send the differences to the browser 💜
• -n, --nodiff — send the whole screen to the browser every single time 📺
• -m, --max-sessions arg (=20) — max number of simultaneous sessions 🌈
• --max-http-connections arg (=25) — max number of simultaneous HTTP connections 🧃
• --local-only — only accept connections from localhost 🏠
• --name arg (=anyterm) — the name used for logging and the pid file 📝
• --help — show the help message 🆘

🔒 SECURITY

okay this section is SO important, bestie 😭

🚫 do not run anytermd as root. ever. not even once.

anyterm's code has not been audited for security 💀. it is almost certainly possible to crash it by sending it invalid input, and experience suggests this sort of weakness can also be exploited to allow arbitrary code execution. yikes 🙈

all CGI applications and similar programs deal with this same kind of problem, though some are better written than others 🧐. the Anyterm code doesn't need to run with a higher privilege level than any other web application, so weaknesses in Anyterm don't put your system at any higher risk than weaknesses in any other web application would 🫶

🚫 avoid exposing anytermd directly to the Internet.

anytermd should only be used as a backend service, reachable only through a frontend HTTPS proxy, such as Apache, that requires authentication 🔐. the install guide at http://anyterm.org/1.1/install.html has examples of how to set this up 📖

a more complete and up-to-date discussion of security issues in anytermd lives at http://anyterm.org/security.html 💖

🧚 EXAMPLES

if you just wanna test Anyterm, you can do:

anytermd --local-only

and then connect to http://localhost:8080 with your Javascript-enabled web browser 🌐. the browser should display a terminal window with a bash command prompt owned by whoever started anytermd ✨

if you want SSH-over-HTTP access on localhost:8022, you might run it like this 🦋:

anytermd --command "/usr/bin/ssh -o your-username@localhost" --port 8022
--user nobody --charset utf-8 --local-only

🌈 SEE ALSO

Anyterm is more fully documented on its web site, http://anyterm.org/. the web site may be more up-to-date than this man page 💜

👑 AUTHOR

Anyterm is written by Phil Endecott. This man page was contributed by Eric Rossen 🫶

---

bestie, this manual is from Phil Endecott, version 1.1.something 💖 you're literally so ready to go, slay 💅✨