[Oneiric-Topic] Byobu

[Clint Byrum]

Excerpts from Dustin Kirkland's message of Fri Apr 01 10:43:02 -0700 2011:
> On Fri, Apr 1, 2011 at 11:48 AM, Clint Byrum <clint at ubuntu.com> wrote:
> > Excerpts from Dustin Kirkland's message of Fri Apr 01 07:08:31 -0700 2011:
> >> 2011/4/1 Raphaël Pinson <raphink at gmail.com>:
> >> > Also, a few years back, I had begun to work on making screen ACLs
> >> > easier in byobu, but had not found the time to finish that part. Since
> >> > Ubuntu encourages the use of user accounts vs root, this is a feature
> >> > that could be very useful on Ubuntu servers I think.
> >>
> >> That's a great idea, Raphael.  Actually, I was talking with Dave
> >> Walker about this recently.  Basically, I'm just going to move the
> >> screen configuration magic from screenbin into byobu, and I think
> >> we'll have almost everything we need.
> >>
> >
> > Maybe I'm missing something here.. but this seems to happen to me
> > whenever I enable "byobu by default" (last time I did this in earnest
> > was for a week around 10.10 beta1, but I simluated it again just now on
> > natty beta1 to confirm its still this way):
> 
> Clint,
> 
> We're talking about two different things.  What you're talking about
> is the behavior of one system user on the system, logging in multiple
> times, from multiple different places.
> 
> We're talking about GNU screen's built in ACL feature, where one user
> can share a session (optionally with read/write, or read/only) to a
> different system user.  So user 'kirkland' could share his session
> with user 'Spamaps', or 'guest'.
> 

I took your statement of "we'll have almost everything we need." to
mean, we'll have almost everything we need to make it the default
terminal shell.

> > [ from inside byobu ]
> > clint at laptop:~$ sshlucid-box-that-has-byobu-on
> >
> > I know that had it been a later release it would ask me about the nested
> > session. I am not sure that is all that great as well, how about just
> > making the default answer N and not even asking? I know sometimes you
> > do want a nested session... but I'd bet guess thats a special case and
> > usually not what users want, and is handled very well by running 'byobu'
> > Even a simple echo 'You have an active byobu session..' would be better
> > than stopping to ask me a question.
> 
> Interesting.  Sure, we can make that configurable, at the very least.
> And we should absolutely discuss the most sensible default behavior.
> That's absolutely a valid point, and something that should definitely
> be reconsidered.
> 

I opened a bug to get some feedback:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/byobu/+bug/747649

> > Anyway, since this is a lucid remote box, now I have *4* lines of byobu
> > hotness at the bottom. Also I hit F2 to go to the next window. OOPS,
> > my ssh session disappeared because I'm only controlling the local
> > byobu. I want to scroll back on the remote machine to see what I did
> > 5 minutes ago. Oops, the scrollback capabilities are gone because my
> > local terminal has been told its got a window now. Ctrl-A-A-ESC will
> > get me into the screen backscroll/copy/paste mode, but by this time,
> > honestly.. I'm very, very annoyed and just want my bash back.
> 
> You can *always* get around byobu launching by default by running:
> 
>  $ ssh -t remotehost bash
> 
> I use this frequently when ssh'ing elsewhere from within Byobu, if I
> don't want a nested session.  This probably needs to be documented
> better.
> 

I think its well documented and works fine. My main concern is that it
interrupts the normal flow to have to logout and back in to disable the
nesting. 

> > Until the mechanics flow between terminals and ssh sessions in a way
> > that makes sense to me, I'll find it very hard to be a +1.
> 
> Fair enough.  It's really just a matter of knowing where you are, and
> how to drive.  It's second nature to me, at this point.
> 

Thats sort of the opposite of all those who haven't started using byobu
yet, whom we're suggesting may be opted in to it soon.

This one isn't a total deal killer. I am concerned that going forward w/o
some plan for how to handle nested sessions smoothly would be a missed
opportunity to give a lot of users a really great first impression
of byobu.

> > Has there been any thought given to focusing on making byobu work in
> > a more client/server way where a remote byobu knows it is talking to
> > a byobu terminal, and so can integrate well into it (so add its status
> > to the local byobu rather than adding another status line.. and letting
> > f-keys be split between local / remote).
> >
> > THAT would make it smooth, and would probably turn me into a fan.
> 
> To be honest, no I haven't given much thought specifically about it,
> though that sounds like a great topic for Oneiric byobu development.
> 
> The code that currently handles this (in case you want to toy with it
> yourself) is in /usr/bin/byobu-launcher.  See the:
>   case "$TERM" in     *screen*) #handle nesting ...
> section of that shell script.  This is where we could do something smarter.
> 

Count me in for a session about byobu development.