Collaboration (multi user) support

[xPaw]

It's not documented whether multiple users can use one self hosted installation at once or not. Is this a supported use case?

[sr229]

If I remember, this is a planned feature. But if this was a 1:1 code-oss port. VS Live Share could work on this.

[kylecarbs]

Currently, we do not support multiple users collaboratively editing on the same code-server instance. We've thought of this and would love to hear what your thoughts are.

In our world, it'd be great to provide collaborative access, but never allow the collaborator to have control over the host machine in any way (for security reasons).

[sr229]

I think we should do this the way how VS Live share does it - RBAC by limiting views to read-only and restricting terminal access.

[xPaw]

I currently use https://github.com/c9/core for collaboration, where multiple users can log into the same server and work together.

code-server interests me as it uses VS Code so it heavily supported, unlike Cloud9. For my use case, permissions aren't really a problem.

[nhooyr]

@kylecarbs does vscode live share work?

[kylecarbs]

I believe it would if the extension was open-sourced. Unfortunately, we can't provide support for it.

See: microsoft/vscode#38733 (comment)

[zanhk]

This is a must for a cloud ide, Without this feature I don't even see an advantage of using a cloud editor as there are few ways to share the workspace through the client: and in plus require less resources than the browser.
So definitely +1

[zanhk]

Maybe also with an interactive button in the status bar showing connected user and options to manage permissions.
This could be a really game changer

I'd have a look at how MS Word Online handles it:

I like the idea of having a different cursor for every person actively editing,
this could be implemented via WebSockets / WebRTC.

Also, when providing a login functionality, there should be a modern backend for this, not just local users.
A solution that would fit very many people would be to integrate SAML and/or OpenID authentication.

As I mentioned in #85, you could use Keycloak (which can handle both SAML and OpenID) as an IdP:
Keycloak: keycloak/keycloak
Keycloak NodeJS integration: keycloak/keycloak-nodejs-connect

[kylecarbs]

How have they implemented it? Optimally it wouldn’t allow for full-access (to prevent malicious activity).

…

On Thu, Mar 7, 2019 at 9:52 PM Adrian Barylski ***@***.***> wrote: This feature is a must for us. My suggestions based on Cloud9 experience: - Allow for a shared terminal The way Cloud9 tackled this is great and it is something I'd personally love to see implemented in code-server. The collaboration feature is super important for us. We use Cloud9 as our go-to IDE but after Amazon's take over, we're looking for alternatives. — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#33 (comment)>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AGysxLSMbqLxhV0ardGWbNZPQbEdFiYEks5vUfqDgaJpZM4bgsjG> .

[baryla]

This feature is a must for us. In terms of access, I would say that allowing the use of a terminal and editing any file/folder etc. would be enough.

My suggestions based on Cloud9 experience:

• Allow for a shared terminal
• See exactly where others are on a file (cursor, line highlight)
• A way to see how many people are currently viewing the project
• A way to see a person's active file (we usually talk about a particular file that may be nested in 10 folders)

The way Cloud9 tackled this is great and it is something I'd personally love to see implemented in code-server. We use it as our go-to IDE but after Amazon's take over, we're looking for alternatives and Coder/code-server would be it if it had collaboration/live share.

[baryla]

@kylecarbs - sorry I accidentally commented and then deleted it haha. See my new comment.
Regarding how Cloud9 implemented this - I'm not sure about the self-hosted version as I haven't used it however, the way we use cloud one is this:

1. We create a remote SSH workspace from our master account per project
2. From the master account, we invite all devs to have access to the workspace (files/folders + terminal)
3. Then you switch to your personal account and use the workspace shared by the master account.

I'm trying to think what malicious activity there could be if this is self-hosted? Surely if you have a secure server and you trust your devs, there is nothing to worry about? In our case, we only have 3 full-time devs so I guess the only time where there could be a concern for this is if we get a freelancer or something.

If you could share some of your concerns about this, I'd love to hear them! :)

I think project selection should be done after login via a seperate page, locking each vs code session to one project to work on at a time.

@baryla You could accidentially kill the server/container via the terminal, e.g. by installing packages that mess with the system, or killing the wrong process ID.
I already had some thoughts about that in #86.