DRAWTERM(1)

💖 NAME 💖

drawterm — the client for connecting to cpu, fs, and auth servers, no cap 🫶

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🌈 SYNOPSIS 🌈

drawterm [ -GBO ] [ -h host ] [ -u user ] [ -a authserver ] [ -s
secstore ] [ -e 'crypt hash' ] [ -k keypattern ] [ -p ] [ -t timeout ] [
-r root ] [ -g geometry ] [ -c cmd ...]

bestie the synopsis is out here name-dropping -g geometry while the options list below literally never mentions it again. iykyk 💀 not me pointing it out, just saying.

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👑 DESCRIPTION 👑

okay so Drawterm is a client for connecting venerable systems to Plan 9 systems ✨

The standard behavior, like when you pass zero options, is that it starts a graphical session which will prompt you for a cpu server, an auth server, and a password. And if $USER isn't set? It's gonna prompt you for a username too. girl it needs to know who you are 🌸

The whole goal of drawterm is to provide an abstraction layer from the client operating system over to the Plan 9 system you actually want. Client-side devices that can be represented as filesystems will be — and are — served from the namespace drawterm operates in. Generally speaking this means drawterm behaves like a Plan 9 kernel and will attempt to reconstruct a Plan 9 terminal-like experience from a non-Plan 9 system. it's giving "cosplay but the costume is a whole kernel" 💅

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✨ OPTIONS ✨

here's the whole menu, bestie, nothing skipped:

• -G — start drawterm in text-only mode (no graphics). terminal only, main character energy 🔥
• -B — disable kbdfs. no keyboard filesystem today 🙈
• -O — use the old cpu(1) to connect to the cpu server rather than rcpu(1). retro era ⭐
• -h host — connect to host for cpu 🌸
• -u user — remote user id 🫶
• -a authserver — connect to authserver for auth 🔐
• -s secstore — sets the address of the secstore(8) server. If the -s option is absent, secstore(1) will attempt to dial tcp!$auth!secstore (or the otherwise specified auth server).
• -e 'crypt hash' — specifies the 'crypt hash' for the connection. The default is 'rc4_256 sha1'. Usage of no encryption can be specified by 'clear' as per ssl(3). > 🚨 note: this option is deprecated and only relevant to the outdated cpu(1) protocol.
• -k keypattern — use keypattern to select a key to authenticate to the remote side (see auth(2)).
• -p — protect the connection against connection resets by establishing an aan(8) tunnel 🛡️
• -t timeout — set the timeout for aan(8) to a value in seconds (default is one day). ⏰
• -r root — specifies the root directory on the client. The default is /root and all further paths are relative thereto.
• -c cmd ... — the command to run can be passed with -c cmd ..., otherwise an interactive shell is started. The user's profile is run before the command with $service set to cpu to allow further customization of the environment (see rc(1) for more information).

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🦋 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES 🦋

• USER — unless otherwise specified, the user stored in $USER is used for authentication.
• PASS — if $PASS is set, no password will be prompted for in authentication and the contents of $PASS will be used instead. 🎀
• cpu — unless otherwise specified, the address stored in $cpu is used for the rcpu(1) connection (if set).
• auth — unless otherwise specified, the address stored in $auth is used for the rcpu(1) connection (if set).

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🌸 SERVICES 🌸

A number of services are provided in drawterm, bestie. The exact functionality and availability of certain features may be dependent on your platform or architecture 👀

• /mnt/term — a mount of the client machine's root filesystem as well as certain virtual filesystems, to present Plan 9 devices and interfaces that aren't available on non-Plan 9 systems. On Windows this is a directory containing the available lettered disks (C:, A:, etc.). Additionally, there is always a /mnt/term/root folder which is a copy of the client machine's namespace with no virtual filesystems present, as to avoid conflicting names (such as with Linux's /root). 🗂️
• #b — assuming the -B flag is not set, /dev/kbd will be provided for kbdfs (see kbd(3)).
• #i — assuming the -G flag is not set, various drawing device files will be provided in /dev (see draw(3)). 🎨
• #m — assuming the -G flag is not set, files for controlling the mouse will be provided in /dev (see mouse(3)). 🖱️
• #c — a number of console device files giving access to the console screen and miscellaneous information are provided and mounted in /dev (see cons(3)).
• #I — the network filesystem is served and bound over /net, providing the interface to Internet Protocol stacks (see ip(3)). 🌐
• #A — an audio device filesystem is served, if possible, as a one-level directory in /dev (see audio(3)). Note that this device, if unable to be served, will not cause a panic in drawterm. phew 😭

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🧚 EXAMPLES 🧚

Make a headless rcpu session connecting to 10.30.167.25 using plan9.postnix.us as the auth server with aan(8) enabled:

drawterm -G -h 10.30.167.25 -a plan9.postnix.us -p

Make a session using cpu rather than rcpu to tenshi.postnix.us; this command is the same for connecting to a Plan 9 4th edition system:

drawterm -O -h tenshi.postnix.us

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💜 SOURCE 💜

https://git.9front.org/plan9front/drawterm/HEAD/info.html

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⭐ SEE ALSO ⭐

rc(1), cpu(1), rcpu(1), con(1), import(4), exportfs(4), tlssrv(8), aan(8)

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💀 BUGS 💀

Drawterm is not a Plan 9 program. that's it. that's the bug. iconic honestly 🙈

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🌈 HISTORY 🌈

Drawterm was originally developed by Russ Cox (rsc) for Plan 9 4th edition. This original version is still usable on Plan 9 and its forks which use the p9sk1 and older authsrv(6) protocols.

https://swtch.com/drawterm/

The 9front project has forked drawterm to incorporate features from 9front — most importantly dp9ik authentication support (see authsrv(6)) and the TLS-based rcpu(1) protocol. slay 🌟

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and that's the whole drawterm(1) page, bestie 🫶 it lives in the General Commands Manual, straight out of the 9front drawterm tree — the footer's just DRAWTERM(1) with no date on it, so we're keeping it mysterious 💅 go connect to something, fr fr 💖