Add-ons

All workspace deployments provided by rerobots and all devices provided by hardshare users support the core API. Additional features, referred to as add-ons, can also be provided by hardshare owners if sufficient hardware requirements are satisfied.

cam

Many workspaces include cameras. The add-on cam enables working with cameras via api.rerobots.net and embedding of video feeds in webpages, such as sandboxes hosted on rerobots.net. If the entire camera is part of a single workspace deployment, then typically the camera device file will be created inside the filesystem of an instance, and the add-on cam will operate on this file.

Many hardshare users want to share a camera across multiple workspaces, or to only expose a subset of the image to their remote users. For these cases, hardshare provides special features described in the section Attach External Camera.

cmdsh

The add-on cmdsh provides remote shells via WebSockets. This is motivated to provide ssh-like features from contexts where ssh is not available, for example in Web apps. This add-on is required for sandbox kinds that include a browser-embedded terminal: xterm and editor-xterm.

To add it from the CLI

hardshare addon-cmdsh --add

and to remove it, hardshare addon-cmdsh --rm.

To use cmdsh, instances must be created from a compatible image. The default Docker image rerobots/hs-generic (defined by generic/Dockerfile in the under the directory devices/ of the sourcetree) supports cmdsh.

VNC

VNC is a system for remote access to a desktop display, keyboard, and mouse, following the protocol defined in RFC 6143. The add-on vnc enables parts of the rerobots API for worknig with VNC servers in instances. An example with HackRF hardware together with a window of GNU Radio embedded in a sandbox is shown in the figure below.

At this time, the sandbox kind vnc is basesd on noVNC and requires instances created from an image derived from Dockerfile-vnc under the directory devices/ of the sourcetree.

To add it from the CLI

hardshare addon-vnc --add

and to remove it, hardshare addon-vnc --rm.

VS Code

The add-on vscode provides management for code-server on a per instance basis. With it, a core VS Code IDE is available as a kind of sandbox.