Something I love about VS Code is that when I am using a terminal in WSL, I can run code file.txt, and it will open that file with VS Code on my local using the WSL remote extension.
Is it possible to do a similar thing with SSH? I.e., if I am SSH'ed into a remote host, is it possible to set things up so that running code file.txt will open VS Code on my local machine, connected via the remote SSH extension to open that file?
I found much better & simple answer thanks to this post.
Simply create new script file named code with below contents & put file under any folder from $PATH. (echo $PATH to see what folders you can use)
#! /usr/bin/env zsh
local max_retry=10
for i in {1..$max_retry}
do
local script=$(echo ~/.vscode-server/bin/*/bin/remote-cli/code(*oc[$i]N))
if [[ -z ${script} ]]
then
echo "VSCode remote script not found"
exit 1
fi
local socket=$(echo /run/user/$UID/vscode-ipc-*.sock(=oc[$i]N))
if [[ -z ${socket} ]]
then
echo "VSCode IPC socket not found"
exit 1
fi
export VSCODE_IPC_HOOK_CLI=${socket}
${script} $@ > /dev/null 2>&1
if [ "$?" -eq "0" ]; then
exit 0
fi
done
echo "Failed to find valid VS Code window"
#! /bin/bash
max_retry=10
for i in $(seq 1 $max_retry)
do
recent_folder=$(ls ~/.vscode-server/bin/ -t | head -n$i | tail -1)
script=$(echo ~/.vscode-server/bin/$recent_folder/bin/remote-cli/code)
if [[ -z ${script} ]]
then
echo "VSCode remote script not found"
exit 1
fi
socket=$(ls /run/user/$UID/vscode-ipc-* -t | head -n$i | tail -1)
if [[ -z ${socket} ]]
then
echo "VSCode IPC socket not found"
exit 1
fi
export VSCODE_IPC_HOOK_CLI=${socket}
${script} $@ 2>/dev/null
if [ "$?" -eq "0" ]; then
exit 0
fi
done
echo "Failed to find valid VS Code window"
Above script doesn't work with recent updates. I had to change first line to
local script=$(echo ~/.vscode-server/bin/*/bin/remote-cli/code(*oc[1]N))
Original script may fail if recently opened ssh window is closed, yet there is another SSHed window open. I have enhanced the script to enable retrying the command with recent N(default 10) windows.
You shouldn't have to do anything. VSCode automatically sets the path/PATH to the code in the path/PATH environment variable depending on your shell. See this response. You might be overwriting your path/PATH like I was. I was accidentally overwriting path in ~/.cshrc and PATH in ~/.bashrc and was running into the same issue. After fixing it, I can run code on the command line. which code returns the location of the command.
Until I spent time to figure it out, I was using the two methods mentioned below. Both of which worked for me in bash; you can modify it for your shell as you see fit. But really fix your path/PATH rather than using these methods.
Adding location of code to the PATH in ~/.bashrc
export PATH=${VSCODE_GIT_ASKPASS_NODE%/*}/bin:$PATH
OR
Setting alias to code in ~/.bashrc
alias code="${VSCODE_GIT_ASKPASS_NODE%/*}/bin/code"
Yes, sort of. From a VSCode terminal run the command env | grep VSCODE_IPC_HOOK_CLI then copy-and-paste that line that line with export into your ssh terminal. After that, you should be able to run code from your ~/.vscode-server/bin/XXX/bin directory.
VSCode terminal
SSH terminal
You can to automate this with a .bashrc and .profile to place the IPC code into a temp file, and source that when you do your ssh login.
For example, this works for me...
Append this to ~/.bashrc
#
if [ "$VSCODE_IPC_HOOK_CLI" != "" ]; then
cat >$HOME/.vscode_env.sh <<EOF
#
if [ "\$VSCODE_IPC_HOOK_CLI" = "" ]; then
export VSCODE_IPC_HOOK_CLI="$VSCODE_IPC_HOOK_CLI"
alias code="${VSCODE_GIT_ASKPASS_NODE%/*}/bin/code"
fi
EOF
fi
And append this to your ~/.profile
[ -f $HOME/.vscode_env.sh ] && . $HOME/.vscode_env.sh
(There may be more elegant ways. And you still have to start at least 1 terminal in your remote VSCode session.)
this works to me
if [[ -n "$SSH_CLIENT" || -n "$SSH_TTY" ]]; then
local script=$(echo ~/.vscode-server/bin/*/bin/remote-cli/code(*oc[1]N))
if [[ -z ${script} ]]
then
echo "VSCode remote script not found"
exit 1
fi
local socket=$(echo /run/user/$UID/vscode-ipc-*.sock(=oc[1]N))
if [[ -z ${socket} ]]
then
echo "VSCode IPC socket not found"
exit 1
fi
export VSCODE_IPC_HOOK_CLI=${socket}
alias code=${script}
fi
Lazy Ren's script for bash almost worked for me. However it was giving an error in the retry strategy.
The following is working for me:
#! /bin/bash
max_retry=10
for i in $(seq 1 $max_retry)
do
recent_folder=$(ls ~/.vscode-server/bin/ -t | head -n$i | tail -1)
script=$(echo ~/.vscode-server/bin/$recent_folder/bin/remote-cli/code)
if [[ -z ${script} ]]
then
echo "VSCode remote script not found"
exit 1
fi
socket=$(ls /run/user/$UID/vscode-ipc-* -t | head -n$i | tail -1)
if [[ -z ${socket} ]]
then
echo "VSCode IPC socket not found"
exit 1
fi
export VSCODE_IPC_HOOK_CLI=${socket}
${script} $@ 2>/dev/null
if [ "$?" -eq "0" ]; then
exit 0
fi
done
echo "Failed to find valid VS Code window"
On line 7 and 14, when i is greater than 1, recent_folder and socket become a list, and the rest of the script does not work.
To solve, I have added a | tail -1 to line 7. The combination of |head -n$i | tail -1 should give the 'ith' line, which is what we want.
Use the below commands to open a folder or a file on the remote terminal.
Note: vscode-server must be already installed on the remote host (It would be, if you have already connected to it). Also the absolute path has to be specified for the file or folder. Use -n to launch in new window,-r to reuse same window.
code --folder-uri <absolute-path>
code --file-uri <absolute-path-file-name>
Example:
code -r --folder-uri /home/myscripts/src
code -n --file-uri /home/myscripts/src/math/sample.py
