September 18th, 2006

Ajax console for your Slice!

Celebrate good times. You speak, we listen, cool stuff happens. A major customer request was console access. Now why would you need console access when you have SSH?

Several reasons:
  • you might accidentally lock yourself out via firewall (never happens right?)
  • SSH can fail
  • you misconfigure a server and it can’t boot properly

Previously, you had to open a support issue to get this resolved. No longer! Just login to SliceManger, click the [console] link next to your Slice name and let the magic happen.



Pretty wicked eh? This shouldn’t replace SSH as your remote access method, even though it is encrypted over HTTPS. The console is mainly for emergency use or a quick check in when you only have browser access. But we’re certain it will make your life easier someday and that’s what we like to do.

Now who can you thank for such coolness? Jason of course. He forced Ruby, Rails and Python (ajaxterm) into the same room, then convinced them to play nicely. Too smart for his own good that guy. Pop into the chatroom and let us know what you think. As always thanks for your input – it’s how we make things better around here.

Posted by matt Filed in slicehost, software

32 Comments

  1. March 17th, 2008 at 10:00 PM matt

    Update – the pop-up window and console are bigger per customer requests.

  2. March 17th, 2008 at 10:00 PM Matt AT lionix . com

    Great Stuff!!.. thanks for your devotion to quality service!

  3. March 30th, 2008 at 11:04 PM John

    Looks like the link to the picture is broken. :-(

  4. May 31st, 2008 at 09:57 PM SocketCreep

    One strategy when working on a firewall via an SSH session is to not make any changes to the current firewall script. Make a copy of it. Make your changes to the copy. When you are ready for a test of the altered script:

    1) start a second SSH session and issue a shutdown -r 5 2) run the altered script

    This should give you enough time to see if the new script works. If your new script is messed up and locks you out, the timed shutdown command will call the original script upon reboot.

    If the new script works as designed simply make a back up of the original and rename the new script to the original name.

  5. July 21st, 2008 at 04:09 AM Philip Weaver

    This is just awesome folks. Sometimes I have situations when the only way I can connect in is via the browser. This rocks and thanks for making it an available option.

    Also, I know Slicehost has a lot of Ruby and PHP users and whatnot. I am a really only interested in Javascript on the server side (and optionally Java). I’m running Aptana Jaxer on my slice. Please show some love for Javascript on the server side.

    Thanks, Phil

  6. December 6th, 2008 at 09:56 PM Sabrina

    Heads up: you spelled “properly” improperly (“propoerly”).

  7. January 22nd, 2009 at 06:44 AM Florida

    That’s cool. I think inspiration must have come from the IRB that’s hosted online. It emulates a Ruby shell, but uses AJAX. It’s fast.

  8. March 10th, 2009 at 03:00 AM Bryan Henderson

    This may be a stupid question, but at what level is the console simulated? Does the program running in the virtual machine (Linux kernel) see a keyboard and VGA display, or is there something in the slicehost kernel images that makes this work?

    If my question isn’t clear, maybe this is: can I converse with the boot loader?

  9. May 10th, 2009 at 03:56 PM Tim

    Wow, this looks like a winner.. congrats on the unique solution. This will likely sway me into getting hosting with you guys!

  10. August 29th, 2009 at 07:04 AM chandan

    pretty nice panel interface it seems :)

    will be looking into the slices soon ;)

  11. October 22nd, 2009 at 11:11 PM sho

    @Bryan Henderson

    That is not a stupid question. The link to the actual program is included above (ajaxterm). Im not sure how SliceHost implemented it, but when you run ajaxterm on your own server, you can either have it connect to a shell or do ssh localhost. The web basically just acts as a proxy. Check out wikipedia’s article for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web-based_SSH

  12. February 4th, 2010 at 08:19 AM Kao Lee

    You ranked #3 on google for vps hosting. I was interested in purchasing one of your slices for my site but I’m a little reserve because you have a different control panel. How different is it from cPanel?

  13. February 4th, 2010 at 09:53 PM Jered

    Kao, cPanel should work fine with a slice once installed. The console and control panel described here are different from what cPanel does. Our SliceManager control panel is used to do things like manage your Slicehost account and slice type, while the console described here is a command-line access that can be used when SSH is unavailable. They won’t interfere with cPanel in any way.

  14. February 20th, 2010 at 11:44 AM Catania

    Btw, have you already released couple of updates for this version? Or this one is the latest available?

  15. February 23rd, 2010 at 04:00 PM Jered

    We have updated the console from time to time, yes.

  16. February 25th, 2010 at 11:10 AM Energy

    Now why would you need console access when you have SSH? – it made me think aaand… good point indeed :) David

  17. March 4th, 2010 at 10:19 AM fuel

    We have updated the console from time to time, yes – okk thats good to know, some updates for other programs and stuff take forever to update and its frustrating…

  18. March 5th, 2010 at 10:56 PM Kao Lee

    Thanks for the response, Jered. Sorry, I didn’t check sooner. Appreciate your input though.

  19. March 11th, 2010 at 12:00 AM Chris Hobbs

    Is there a way to enter control characters in the ajax terminal? I entered “cat > t” and can’t regain control. Soft reboot got me out but that’s not so elegant.

  20. March 11th, 2010 at 04:21 PM Jered

    Unfortunately the only browsers that seem to pass control characters along to the AJAX console are Firefox and Internet Explorer.

  21. April 26th, 2010 at 07:19 PM Jeff

    yeah, this is what i found…..!

  22. April 27th, 2010 at 04:24 AM seo baltimore

    This is wonderful news. I’m embarrassed to admit how many times I’ve set the server up wrong!

  23. May 3rd, 2010 at 02:21 AM business signs

    Great going Jason!It’s amazing what can be accomplished when we all just get along and work together. I love the console!

  24. May 17th, 2010 at 08:46 PM bosfresh

    pretty nice panel interface it seems :)

    will be looking into the slices soon ;)

  25. May 24th, 2010 at 10:58 PM Instant Online Car Insurance

    I’ve never thought to do things this way when I end up in a jam (but of course I would never lock myself out wink ) Very clever – I’ll have to keep this on hand.

  26. May 26th, 2010 at 11:16 AM Invitations

    Great to hear about the update. Fianlyl we have more to be put into the laboratory, lol! Thanks for sharing.

  27. May 27th, 2010 at 02:57 PM hard rock music

    Slice manager is just what the doctor ordered. Good Job!

  28. June 4th, 2010 at 12:51 AM Mukki

    Wow, this looks like a winner.. congrats on the unique solution. This will likely sway me into getting hosting with you guys!

  29. June 22nd, 2010 at 11:31 PM Urlaub Masuren

    Thanks for the response, nice panel interface

  30. June 25th, 2010 at 11:39 AM Don

    Thanks for outstanding feature for my slice’s, now I’m to read some tutorials about Ajax like “Ajax for Dummies” cause don’t know anything about it.

  31. July 28th, 2010 at 10:52 AM NJ Carpet Cleaning

    Love Slice Manager. Great for emergency type situations.

  32. August 19th, 2010 at 05:27 AM PriceRiteMart

    Love live SSH, always a good backup way to gain control if you lose your password.

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