Mosh for Chrome v0.5.6

This is the first release in over three years, and is being pushed out primarily to fix an SSH issue affecting a subset of users. This does not include particularly fresh dependencies, but does include a number of little adjustments that had only been available in the "dev channel" for a long while.

• Upgrade to mosh 1.3.2 (actually the latest since it is also a bit old).
• Upgrade to hterm 1.80.
• Update to work with Bazel 0.14.1 (which is very old, and newer Bazel versions are incompatible).
• Some improvements to DNSSEC SSHFP record handling.
• Tolerate large SSH banner sizes similar to OpenSSH.
• Other minor improvements.

Mosh for Chrome v0.4.5

This release includes a number of visible and behind-the-scenes changes and bugfixes. Among the visible changes are:

• Optional support for Google Public DNS-over-HTTPS.
• Improved terminal preferences editor.
• Configurable Mosh escape key (h/t @telotortium).
• "Native" Windows port.

Some of the behind-the-scenes changes include:

• Update to the latest upstream Mosh v1.2.6 and hterm v1.57.
• New build system based on Bazel.
• Update to Pepper SDK version 49.

Some of these deserve more discussion.

Google Public DNS-over-HTTPS

You can choose to use https://dns.google.com to resolve your hostnames. This provides "last mile" privacy and authentication between you and the DNS resolver. This also makes Mosh for Chrome able to use DNSSEC, when available, to ensure your hostnames are authentic. This further enables you to put SSH host key fingerprints in DNS, which helps reduce the likelihood of a Man-in-the-Middle attack. See this wiki page for more details.

"Native" Windows port

Windows users do not have a native Mosh client, so many Mosh for Chrome users are on Windows. However, Google Chrome is dropping support for Chrome Apps on all platforms except Chrome OS in the coming months. Therefore, starting with this release, Mosh for Chrome can be downloaded as a single-file installer and installed easily on Windows. Under the hood, this uses the NW.js framework, which is just a fancy way to deliver an app that runs in Chromium (open source version of Chrome), providing a "native experience".

The Windows port is beta, and as such there are some known issues:

• Issue #130: Links that open new browser windows (such as "Help") are blank.
• Issue #137: You can't have more than one session at a time.

Update to Mosh v1.2.6

The latest upstream Mosh release is included here, which yields some performance benefits for Mosh for Chrome. It is backward compatible with older mosh-server binaries, but also upgrading to the latest on your server will yield the most performance benefit. See their announcement for details.

New build system based on Bazel

This is behind-the-scenes, but is a big structural change to the project. Bazel replaces the old hacky build script and Makefile that (barely) held everything together. Development is now a lot quicker, easier, and more reliable. The structure and extensibility of Bazel made it feasible to add things like unit tests and the Windows port. Read more about how Bazel is being used here.

Mosh for Chrome v0.3.0

This release upgrades to upstream mosh v1.2.5, which adds these features:

• IPv6 support.
• XTerm mouse mode.
• And more.

Note that you must upgrade the server side to mosh v1.2.5 or higher to enjoy these new features, but Mosh for Chrome is backward compatible with older mosh-server versions.

This release also upgrades to libssh v0.7.1 (from v0.6.0), which adds support for some new key types and improves security. A patch was also added which supports ssh certificates. Unfortunately, ed25519 host keys are not supported, due to a bug either in the libssh or the way Mosh for Chrome uses it (see Issue #103), but the existence of such a key on the server should not prevent connections.

There are also some new features in addition:

• An actual UI for tweaking terminal settings (thanks, @mjkelly!).
• Improvements to how ssh key fingerprints are displayed.
• Better language when name resolution fails.
• Experimental support for ssh agent authentication via 3rd-party Chrome app.

Mosh for Chrome v0.2.12

Due to a Chrome bug on ARM, many folks using ARM Chromebooks have been suffering crashes when connecting. This release attempts to work around this Chrome bug. See Issue #90 for the gory details. Please post to that bug if you still see crashes after this release.

Mosh for Chrome v0.2.11

This release simply sets the minimum Chrome version in the manifest.json to 42. It was reported in Issue #94 that the latest release cannot load on Chrome 41 due to an ABI incompatibility (the latest version of Mosh for Chrome is built with a newer SDK). As Chrome 41 is outdated, this should not be a major issue, but this change should prevent older browsers from updating to a version that simply won't run.

For those that have already received the Mosh for Chrome update, this is unlikely to help. These users simply need to update their browsers.

Mosh for Chrome v0.2.10

This is a bugfix release.

• Attempts to solve a crash bug when trying to connect. See Issue #90 for details. tl;dr: It was only reported on ARM, is hard to reproduce (although once it starts happening it doesn't stop), and seemed to be fixed simply by building against a newer version of the Pepper API.
• Includes a debug binary. This makes the package quite a bit larger, but it wasn't really that large in the first place. The debug binary is only used if Chrome is started with NaCl debug options enabled, so it will not matter to most. But it may prove useful in the future, as it will enable anyone to bring up the app in a debugger with minimal effort. That said, it is built with full optimizations, and PNaCl's poor C++ exception handling seems to confound the debugger, so we'll see if it turns out to be useful.

You may also noticed that I'm dropping the last part of the version number. It is still there, but I recently changed to making that a non-formalized build number that isn't captured in git, so it isn't all that meaningful for releases.

Mosh for Chrome v0.2.9.17

This release has a few new features, some bug fixes, and fixes an important regression.

• Tab key fixed for Chrome 43. Due to a change in Chrome 43 (just now promoted to beta), the tab key stopped working, making life in the shell pretty terrible. Updating to the latest hterm fixes the issue.
• Home/End keys fixed. There was a terminal emulation bug in hterm. See Issue #58 for details.
• Improved ssh key management UI. It is now clearer whether you've saved a key.
• Fixed escape key handling in fullscreen mode. See Issue #85. h/t @gsf.
• Separate out remote command from mosh command. This is now more in line with the mosh CLI.
• Internal changes. Lots of changes behind the scenes, including switching to C++11 and using it in all its glory, switching to a new version numbering scheme, etc.

Mosh for Chrome v0.2.8.30

Finally, a couple of often requested features:

• Remember last session's parameters. The next time you start a new Mosh session, the fields (user, host, etc.) will be prefilled with the values you used last time. This is stored per browser, not synchronized. We'll save synchronization for a more complete session management feature in the future.
• Add your SSH key through the UI. No more fiddling around with the Javascript console just to add an SSH key. See the link on the right of the new session window.

Also, this is now built with compiler optimizations (-O2); not sure if anyone will notice.

Mosh for Chrome v0.2.7.29

This is a small release with two changes:

• Update hterm. There was a bad interaction with the Chrome dev channel. See Issue #50 for details.
• User-specified terminal init string. You can now specify your own terminal init string if you want to hack around. See the FAQ.

Mosh for Chrome v0.2.6.28

This release fixes a CPU wasting bug that caused performance issues and cost battery life. It is actually a workaround for what looks to be a NaCl bug. See SHA 0421c6a for the gory details.