Interlisp Online

[masinter]

This Discussion is for a general discussion of "online" features. When appropriate (separate discernible implementation stages), create Issues for tracking

[masinter]

@fghalasz wrote re: online.interlisp.org v0.1.0 is up and running - try it out

The first pass at online.interlisp.org is now live at https://online.interlisp.org. It's been tested mostly on Windows11/Chrome and Windows11/Edge. A bit on Linux/Chrome. And very lightly on MacOS 11.5.2 Chrome and Safari. Also it's still running on the AWS T3-micro instance I used for development - which is probably underpowered for any significant load. Once we have a few people try it out and we fix any issues, I will move it to a more powerful instance.

Please try it and send issues, bugs, feedback. Also, pass this on to a few others who could try/test before we release further.

No documentation as yet. But here are some use notes:

1. Register/login with an email address and password. Email addresses are NOT verified, so anything that looks like an email address will do. (In the future we may want to verify email addresses so as to keep bettwer track of who are users are.)

2. Interlisp (and everything else) runs in an Ubuntu-based docker container under the username "medley". User medley has no sudo privileges.

3. For every user, the system stores two volumes containing 1)the Interlisp directory and 2) the user home directory (minus the Interlisp directory). The user home directory is mounted at /home/medley. and the Interlisp directory is mounted at /home/medley/il. The system is setup so that everything having to do with Interlisp is contained within the /home/medley/il directory tree including the user INIT files and lisp.virtualmem. These two volumes are preserved across sessions for the user. Everything else in the Ubuntu system is "recreated" for the user each time they restart Interlisp (or the xterm/sftp feature).

4. When done with a session just (IL:LOGOUT) to return to the main screen on the web portal. Interlisp is set to automatically (IL:LOGOUT) after 30 minutes of inactivity. This is to prevent unused docker containers from overburdening the system. (This is setup in the INIT file by ADVISING IDLE.)

5. From the web-portal, you can start Interlisp from the previous session (ie, from lisp.virtualmem) or from the sysout which is stored at /home/medley/il/sysout/online.sysout. Online.sysout is initially a copy of full.sysout from the release, but the user can replace online.sysout as needed.

6. During every Interlisp session, an SFTP server will be started, providing access (upload or download) to the /home/medley file system including the /home/medley/il tree. Any SFTP app (e.g., Filezilla) on your PC/Mac can be used. SFTP authentication is by username/password. The username is always "medley". The password is unique for each session and can be found at the right hand edge of the status window at the top of the Interlisp screen (left-click on it to get a menu with the password in a larger font) or as the value of IL:|Online.SftpPassword|. The port to use for this server is also unique per session, is of the form 23NNN, and can be found in the status window with the password or as the value of IL:|SftpPort|. The SFTP server shuts down when the Interlisp session ends.

7. Using (IL:CHAT 'SHELL) you can get a VT100 terminal running a bash shell. Neither the arrow keys nor the mouse nor the clipboard work in this terminal, making normal Linux-y operations somewhat difficult. BUT, you can type "xterm & twm" at the command line. This will start up a simple window manager (twm) and an xterm. It will ask you to place the xterm. It will also put a title bar on top of the Interlisp desktop window. Middle clicking in the title bar of the Interlisp desktop will toggle the z-order of the Interlisp window and the xterm window. To close xterm and end twm, type "exit" in xterm and ^C in the Interlisp CHAT window.

In the xterm window, the arrow keys work, the mouse works, and you can use the clipboard as follows. Ctrl-Shift-C copies the selection to the clipboard. Ctrl-Shift-V pastes the clipboard to the selection. You can use the CLIPBOARD app in noVNC (open the toolbar on the left side of the browser page)to move text between your desktop and the xterm in this way (e.g., to paste credentials into git). For example, open the noVnc clipboard app, cut the desired text from your PC/Mac desktop, paste it into the noVnc clipboard app, then Ctrl-Shift-V into xterm. Works in reverse too.

8. Both vim and nano are installed and can be used in the CHAT window or in xterm. No emacs.

9. Both git and gh are installed. They are not configured and no credentials are preset. But any configuration and permanent credentials that are stored in the home directory will be persisted across sessions. The git repo for Interlisp is not included in ~/il tree. If needed it should be cloned into any directory in /home/medley or /home/medley/il.

10. Note that it follows from 2 & 3 above that you cannot in general add packages to Ubuntu using apt. And even if you do manage to do so (e.g., the package does not require root privileges), the package add will not be preserved across sessions.

11. If you manage to mess up Interlisp online.sysout and lisp.virtualmem so bad that Interlisp will not start from the web portal, you can always use the "Start Xterm" button under Advanced Options on the main web page. This will start up the container with the same volumes mounted as with Start Interlisp, but with just an Xterm running. You can then try to fix Interlisp up on a linux level. E.g., deleting the ~/il/sysout/online.sysout file will cause it to be re-created from ~/il/loadups/full.sysout the next time you "Start Interlisp". Note that the SFTP server is operational while the xterm session is in progress. Port and password are at the top of the screen. Type "exit" in the xterm to close the session. The session will automatically close after 30 minutes of inactivity in the xterm.

12. Under Advanced Options on the main page are two buttons that will reset the per-user volumes to their "factory" state, i.e., the state that the currently in-operation Interlisp Online docker container initializes these volumes to, which may be different from the Interlisp Online docker container that was used to originally create these volumes (e.g., it may contain a later release of Interlisp). The two volumes can be reset separately and independently, providing no modification were made that creates a new dependence between /home/medley and /home/medley/il.

13. Any given user can run only 1 session (Interlisp or xterm) at a time. If a user starts a second simultaneous session, then the first session will be summarily killed (with no notice to the user). The volumes will be preserved, but restarting from lisp.virtualmem may or may not be possible. [This is something that probably needs some work. Eventually, I will give the user a choice of whether to kill the first session or abort the start of the second session.]