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.

screenshot of VNC with HackRF

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.