Time to be a mobile master! 🔗

Master of the command line, impotent on the GUI?

However would the linux power user survive on Android? Enter termux, a powerful android terminal emulator app that I've taken to using to plug my phone directly into my development setup. Here are my setup instructions.

Installing Termux 🔗

I recommend installing the following packages through F-droid:

• Termux
• Termux:API
• Termux:Widgets

Next, setup shared storage. and termux-api access. On Termux:

termux-setup-storage
pkg install termux-api

You might need to grant storage permissions for Termux on Android 6 and higher. See here for details.

Optionally, setup git and other related useful packages I normally use:

pkg install git wget

Remote connection. 🔗

Using ssh 🔗

One of my biggest pet peeves about using a phone was that it didn't integrate in well into the way I operate on the command line. Want to copy a file over to the phone? Either fiddle with a usb cable, or use whatsapp/telegram as a mobile clipboard. This section gives a few of the scripts I use to run an ssh server on my phone on demand, essentially allowing me to access my phone just as I would with a remote server 😃

1. Install openssh on termux:

   pkg install openssh
   # or pkg install dropbear

2. Add some useful utilities to termux.

   Relevant code here

   • launch_ssh_background.sh

     #!/bin/bash
     
     # Start SSH daemon
     (sshd  2>/dev/null  && echo "Started openssh server")  || (dropbear && echo "Started dropbear server")
     
     # Grab current dirname. This is useful to anchor the filepath of all our other scripts.
     dir="$(dirname "$(readlink -f "$0")")"
     bash $dir/display_ip_addr_notif.sh

   • display_ip_addr_notification.sh (requires termux:API)

     #!/bin/bash
     # Print only our current ip address
     IP_ADDR=`ip -4 addr show wlan0 | grep -Eo 'inet (addr:)?([0-9]*\.){3}[0-9]*' | grep -Eo '([0-9]*\.){3}[0-9]*'`
     dir="$(dirname "$(readlink -f "$0")")"
     termux-notification --id "termux_ip_addr_notif" \
                         --title "SSH Server Running. Current IP Address: " \
                         --content $IP_ADDR \
                         --priority high \
                         --sound \
                         --vibrate 500,1000 \
                         --on-delete "bash $dir/kill_ssh_process.sh" \
                         --button1 "Kill SSH Connection" \
                         --button1-action "bash $dir/kill_ssh_process.sh; termux-notification-remove termux_ip_addr_notif"
                         # --action "termux-toast $IP_ADDR" 

   • kill_ssh_process.sh

     #!/bin/bash
     pkill sshd || pkill dropbear

   
   

   A simple way to add these to termux is to run the following commands:

   git clone https://github.com/choonkiatlee/termux-scripts.git

3. Optionally, use Termux: Widgets to add termux-scripts/launch_ssh_background.sh as a shortcut to your homescreen

   • Copy relevant scripts to $HOME/.shortcuts

     cp termux-scripts/* $HOME/.shortcuts
     # OR RUN 
     bash termux-scripts/copy_to_shortcuts.sh

   • Long tap on your phone's home screen to bring up the add widgets page, and add the relevant shortcut there.

4. Connect to your phone from your laptop! (Remember to setup passwordless authentication, and copy your ssh keys to the phone as per normal)