Netpowder

Netpowder is a mini-server in the browser. It allows you to host things you make online, without ever having to bother with a server.

Netpowder is made up of planets which have satellites. Right now, there's only one planet, called Neptune. As an end user, you have access to a single satellite, such as Triton. This means that you can access triton.neptune.netpowder.com and host public content from that domain.

If you wish to see a quick video demonstration, you can do so here.

The rest of this document contains instructions for people with access codes, example usages, and answers to commonly asked questions.

Getting started

So you just got access to a satellite, what do you do now? Before starting to use it, please keep the following things in mind:

1. Feel free to ask for help and to give feedback. You can open issues on Github or email me@oskarth.com. If there's anything you are wondering about, or anything you would like to see in in Netpowder, let me know.

2. Be nice. Don't use your satellite to host anything illegal, or otherwise abuse it, such as hosting huge files or flooding the network.

3. Remember that Netpowder is very new. Don't use Netpowder for security-sensitive applications, or to host things that you don't have a backup of. Things will probably break.

Right now there are a limited amount of satellites available. This means that if you don't actively use yours (within a rolling 72 hour window), you might lose access to it to the next person in queue.

With that said, how do you use it? Go to your satellite's URL and login using your access code. You login by typing your access code in the command window below the editor. If you see the message "AUTHENTICATED" in the log, it means you successfully authenticated.

If you see the message "UNAUTHENTICATED" followed by the message "DISCONNECTED" it means you entered the wrong code. Refresh the browser window and try again. If you see anything else, such as just the message "DISCONNECTED", please let me know.

There are some examples in the rest of this document, and more examples are coming soon. In the meantime, experiment away and don't hesitate to ask questions or come with suggestions on what you would like to see in Netpowder.

Example: Hello World

In the command window, write open hello. This lets you edit the file hello in the editor. Write "Hello World" in the editor, then go back to the command window and type save. This saves the file hello with the content "Hello World". If you open another file, or close your browser and come back later, the content "Hello World" will persist in the file hello.

See the demonstration video for how to serve a publicly viewable URL.

Example: Static content hosting

To host static content, such as html, css and js, perform the following steps.

shell mkdir hello
open hello/index.html // write html in the editor.
save
serve hello

Now open up yoursatellite.neptune.netpowder.com/hello/ in a browser. See the video demonstration. Note that this this hello-site will persist even if you close your browser window.

Example: finding and modifiying nginx.conf

If you want to manually modify nginx for some reason, you can do so as follows. Be careful so you don't accidentally lock yourself out (nginx is responsible for the client you are using too).

shell find / -name "nginx.conf"
open <location shown in the log> // change the config in the editor
save
shell service nginx reload // this reloads the changes you made

Commands

Here's an incomplete list of commands. The goal of the commands is to mimick the IRC protocol in terms of its simplicty, while still allowing for more complex shell commands. There are thus two types of commands: simple macros, and Unix commands that start with shell.

If you want to see the implementation of the open/save/serve commands, have a look in server/handler.rkt.

open <file> - opens the file specified
save - implicit saves the current file
save <file> - saves the content of editor to the specified file
serve <dir> - serves the specifed directory
shell <cmd> - executes cmd command in the shell, returns standard out

FAQ

When would I use it?

If you want to make things online and just get them up and running without bothering with servers, and you are dissatisfied or unable to use current solutions for that.

Netpowder is still very much a work in progress, so it remains to be seen what it evolves into. Because each satellite is running on a Unix-like "server", we can leverage a lot of shell and unix goodness, while still presenting a simple user interface for common tasks.

When would I not use it?

• If you care about security, such as hosting sensitive information, or
• if performance is important, i.e. if you have a lot of users, or
• if you are trying to do anything sophisticated.

Where does the name Netpowder come from?

I like to imagine it as gunpowder for the web. Hosting things you make should be a convenient commodity, not a chore.

How does it work behind the scenes?

See http://experiments.oskarth.com/netpowder/ for a technical overview.

Where's the rest of the code?

This repository only shows the satellite part of the code. The backend code that generates a planet and its satellites is hosted in a private repo for now. Parts of it might be open sourced later, but if you are interested in the setup feel free to ping me!

How do I get access?

Currently the number of publicly available satellites is limited. This is due to limited resources, as well as the project being in the initial stages in terms of satellite deployment. If you wish to try out Netpowder, please email me@oskarth.com or sign up to the mailing list.