Remote edition with Atom

How to edit files on the server with your local editor

Supported editors: Atom / TextMate / SublimeText

this document will describe the method for Atom, but you can do this with others, the only difference being the editor plugin

On the client

• Install the plugin remote-atom

apm install remote-atom

• forward the ssh port to the remote-atom port (default:52698)

2 methods

• with an alias

SSH_PORT = your_ssh_port
alias rp3r='ssh -i ~/.ssh/rp3_rsa [email protected] -R $SSH_PORT\:localhost:52698 -p $SSH_PORT'

• with ssh config (simply create a file ~/.ssh/config containing the following rule, replacing 0000 with your ssh port and rp3_rsa with your ssh key filename)

Host rp3r
          HostName rp3.redpelicans.com
          Port 0000
          User redpelicans
          IdentityFile ~/.ssh/rp3_rsa
          RemoteForward 0000 localhost:52698

On the server

• rmate (there are many ports, my favorite being the bash one)

Put rmate somewhere in your PATH or alias it, mine is:

alias atom='~/bin/rmate'

Then configure the port in rmate to your ssh port, the variable name being port.

Editing

• Launch Atom, then : Packages > Remote Atom > Start Server

The editor will now listen for a file to edit.

• Use the alias rp3r to connect to your server, or ssh rp3r if you use ssh config.

• Now, you can use rmate on a file, it should open a new tab in Atom (and focus the window 👍).

Note: you can only open one file per one file, opening multiple files or a whole folder would need some scripting. I'll probably write one soon. Or if you write one, please share :)

When you save a file, the file is send to the server, and refreshed; it allows the WebpackHotMiddleware to watch every modification of files, without having to close the editor. tl;dr : enjoy the live-reload when you :w