
Snowflake: Graphical SFTP client and terminal emulator with helpful utilities - tomerbd
https://github.com/subhra74/snowflake
======
GordonS
Looks decent at a glance, but like many people, I've been using WinSCP for
several years and would need solid reasons to switch - I'd really like to see
a comparison to WinSCP in the readme.

~~~
slantyyz
From what I gather from my initial use of the tool, I think the main advantage
of this tool is reduced window proliferation.

You basically have a bunch of commonly used tools that exist in one window
(file browser client, terminal, rudimentary text/log viewers, etc.)

Depending on your preferences, this might have a lot of value if you're
constrained by screen real estate (i.e., laptop users).

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subhra74
Hi,

Snowflake author here.

The main difference between Snowflake and WinScp or Cyberduck or Putty is that
they are built mostly for a single task, either file transfer or terminal
emulation. Where Snowflake can do both and more. Purpose is to provide a
friendly GUI for common tasks, like killing processes, or rename with sudo.

Its kind of similar to web based admin panels like webmin or ajenti, though
they are more tend to be used for veteran sysadmins. But these admin panels
needs to be configured and installed on the server, where snowflake works from
the local computer without any configuration or installation on server side.

More details can be found on: [https://dev.to/subhra74/how-to-make-you-life-
easier-on-remot...](https://dev.to/subhra74/how-to-make-you-life-easier-on-
remote-linux-servers-ssh-g7m)

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sam_goody
For Windows and Linux.

Am on a Mac so cannot test, but what is the advantage of this over WinSCP,
Filezilla and Cyberduck (IIRC the "old guard" FOSS SCP clients)?

~~~
tomerbd
on mac you can use it with 'java -jar snowflake.jar'

~~~
qorrect
It works great on mac, I'm really enjoying this tool.

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JdeBP
It incorporates JEDIterm, a reworked version of JCTerm and GriTTY, apparently.
But the default terminal type that it passes over SSH is "xterm-256color". It
is, of course, _not_ identical to XTerm.

* [https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses.faq.html#xterm_...](https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses.faq.html#xterm_generic)

* [http://jdebp.uk./Softwares/nosh/guide/commands/TERM.xml#MIS-...](http://jdebp.uk./Softwares/nosh/guide/commands/TERM.xml#MIS-CONFIGURATION)

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slantyyz
I just installed it, it's nice. The UI is simple ("webby" is how I'd describe
it), and it seems adequately responsive.

Being able to switch between the file browser and terminal is very handy.

The one thing I would like to see is the ability to set the editor for the
remote files instead of relying on my system defaults.

I'm not quite sure it's ready to replace WinSCP for me yet, but I'll
definitely give it a chance and see how it goes.

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tracker1
For a similar workflow, at least for terminal and editor, is the Remote SSH
extension for VS Code... really been enjoying it for a one-off server that is
running on a VPS.

I haven't tried dragging or pasting into the file section (which works on
local resources), so can't confirm file transfers actually work.

~~~
sam_goody
Except that VScode runs a Node on port 3000 of your server, and doesn't care
if you already _have_ a node server on port 3000.

Easy to solve once you find out why, but when some dev connects with VSCode
and the production server goes down... not impressed.

~~~
tracker1
I'm pretty sure you're mistaken... I ran the following locally and on the
remote system and not seeing anything on port 3000

    
    
        sudo lsof -i -P -n | egrep -i '\b3000\b.+LISTEN'
    

[https://i.imgur.com/wcCTdLQ.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/wcCTdLQ.jpg)

[https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ms-
vscod...](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ms-vscode-
remote.remote-ssh)

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CloudBuddy
This is very useful. Note though that all of the following doesn't work unless
you have ssh access to the server: \- search \- terminal \- monitoring (cpu &
memory) \- report of used/available disk space \- system information

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zamadatix
Mixing SFTP for file transfer with raw commands for remote file operations
seems like an interesting concept. Are there other tools which have done this?

~~~
kweks
MobaXterm comes to mind as an incredibly complete solution in this niche.

Possibly one of the only pieces of software that I enjoy paying yearly fees
for.

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djmobley
Not a great choice of name given the existence of
[https://www.snowflake.com](https://www.snowflake.com)

~~~
masswerk
Coincidentally, it's also the name of a famous, early graphics demo (1960s),
compare [https://www.masswerk.at/snowflake](https://www.masswerk.at/snowflake)
(URL redirects to an emulation on the same site).

~~~
BuildTheRobots
CuriousMark has a PDP11 video that has some of these demos running on the
original hardware:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EWQYAfuMYw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EWQYAfuMYw)

His videos are surprisingly addictive; they've restored an Apollo guidance
computer, Altos and tonnes of other ancient kit.

~~~
masswerk
I'm actually a great fan, highly recommended!

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lucidphreak
didnt work for me... I can connect all day long to some personal servers I
have via filezilla (port 21) and in snowflake I just get a spinner and then it
fails (and I do modify the port)... I _WANT_ this to work as I like it.. but
so far no bueno.

Anyone else with this same issue?

~~~
subhra74
you are using ftp (file transfer protocol). Snowflake works with ssh/sftp
servers.

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_def
Is it possible to define jump hosts?

edit: if not, does someone know a decent software alike which supports this,
for macos?

~~~
pnutjam
Doesn't the mac console support jumphosts? ssh -J

~~~
_def
Yes, of course. But I'd be happier to be able to manage this in a combined GUI
(like snowflake) as well.

~~~
pnutjam
I've found that some graphical systems will pull config from your .ssh/config

You might try it and see if anything you use works with that.

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Fnoord
How does it compare to Cyberduck?

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wwn_se
seems nice at first glance at least

