

Last.Backend – Visual Docker Containers Orchestration - lastbackend
http://www.lastbackend.com/?utm_source=hn&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=po-1

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lclarkmichalek
Did I really just see a screenshot telling the user to, on their server, pipe
the contents of a non-HTTPS, goo.gl URL into a sudo bash?

[http://lastbackend.com/images/landing/timeline/deploy_2.png](http://lastbackend.com/images/landing/timeline/deploy_2.png)

~~~
lastbackend
Yeah... sorry for that.. We will fix it on Monday also HTTPS. It's not good,
but we tried to open product faster!

~~~
subway
Security should not be an afterthought. Especially not when you're trying to
get me to trust my data to your platform.

~~~
lastbackend
You are right. But you can play with our platform this weekends, and on next
week we'll opening agent to open-source and enable security. We have some
delay with SSL delivery. :(

~~~
antocv
I, for one, aint playin with anything you build. You aint coming close to
having sudo on any of my machines if I can help it.

This shit with "enable security" as after-thought has to stop.

~~~
meddlepal
I agree. Basically makes me distrust the whole thing inside and out; who knows
what other bs engineering practices were used in non visible parts of the
stack? Shipping is great, but please don't ship insecure stuff as a product
you want customers to use. Please.

~~~
lastbackend
We are enabled HTTPS. THX for your comments.

Next: installer update. Give us few minutes.

~~~
meddlepal
Great. Glad to see you're taking this seriously and hopefully it is a good
lesson learned for the future!

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chrisweekly
This looks really compelling. The home page is nicely designed -- but I have
some constructive feedback on the copy, which is understandable but clearly
not written by a native English speaker.

"Development and deployment never been so simple"

The grammar error here is a little jarring to native English speakers, and
it's particularly noticeable because it's in the tagline. Fixing that would
make a better first impression.

"Development and deployment have never been so simple" would work better,
IMHO. Or perhaps you'd prefer "Development and deployment made simple", in
keeping with the terse / minimalist theme.

While I'm at it, a few other minor corrections, in roughly decreasing
importance the further down the page we go:

"GitHub and BitBucket integrations allows you automate DevOps." should be
"GitHub and BitBucket integrations allow you to automate DevOps."

"Servers and Clouds linking" should probably be "Link Servers and Clouds" for
verb consistency with previous headings; "Create... Build... Link... Manage...
" is consistent, whereas "Create... Build... ..Linking... Manage..." is not.

"You can link your server to Last.Backend with special command. Just copy it
and execute in a terminal." could be "You can link your server to Last.Backend
with a special command. Just copy it and execute it in a terminal."

Finally, "Just look at scheme and you can see what's going on. Color element
indication provide all information about all warning and problems. Logs output
gives you ability to know much more." could be improved as "Just look at the
scheme to see what's going on. Colored elements convey information about
warnings and problems at a glance. Log output provides the ability to know
much more." (or similar)

HTH! :)

~~~
lastbackend
WOW! That's amazing! We'll correct it in few minutes!! Thx a lot. Please
contact us. I have some offer for you :)

~~~
rentnorove
Along the same lines, "How it works?" isn't quite right. Should probably be
"How does it work?".

~~~
lastbackend
Agree! Done!

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hmottestad
Looks absolutely beautiful.

Every time I read about linking containers I start wondering if they have
fixed the proxy scenario. Essentially, multiple DBs that need to connected to
a proxy, when you bring up a new DB you don't want to have to restart the
proxy container in order to update the links.

I know docker is built to link from application server to db, and not the
other way around. So for our production server we have each DB create an
apache config file and then hot reload the apache server.

~~~
lastbackend
Hi! Yeah, this is known problem and we tried to fix it. Last.Backend has an
internal service discovery and internal DNS system. With Last.Backend you can
forgot about this :)

This system provide linking between different servers. If you have some
feedback - please provide us! We need it! ) Thx a lot for comment :)

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grimborg
I'd love to try it, but when signing up with github it wants to be granted
access to all my organizations, which I cannot allow (I only want to grant it
access to my repos, not my employer's!). Any way around this?

~~~
lastbackend
We'll add this necessarily option. It's really helpful comment. Thx a lot!

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CornishPasty
Looks great, although I was put off when the instructions to add a server used
a goo.gl URL, and then piped the output into a sudo shell...

Would be nice if it used your own domain (HTTPS is essential!) and if the
script didn't require super user from the outset (or perhaps it could explain
what it is going to do, and then request super user permissions)

~~~
lastbackend
You are right! It's temporary option. We are testing new installer, located on
our domain! HTTPS will be on next week. It's the first update for next week!

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carpenoctem
1\. When signing in with Bitbucket, it tries to add ssh keys to r/w access all
my repos.

2\. Emails with dots not accepted by your sign up form

3\. Drag and drop not working in firefox

4\. I created Ubuntu 14 droplet with DigitalOcean, and inserted your "connect
new servers" command there. Got result:

Run agent on stack Error response from daemon: no such id: lb
time="2015-04-18T16:33:03-04:00" level=fatal msg="Error: failed to remove one
or more containers"

When I'm trying to "run" my server into your app, I'm getting message
"Available server instance not found"

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loceng
More design suggestions, since that seems to be a trend in this thread:

\- "Development and deployment have never been so simple" on two lines, line
break after "deployment"; "Development and deployment have never been so
simple"

\- Autoplay the "Stack constructor" animation

\- Maybe add a automatic sliding for "Build and deploy apps" slides

\- Autoplay the "Link Servers and Clouds"

\- The "Watch video" should be right at the very top of page with a nice
screengrab + big (>) play button in the middle

\- Any particular purpose for enclosing headers with : characters?

~~~
lastbackend
Got it! Thx for comment!

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m00dy
I think that this product might have a great potential. Keep going guys, i
like it even tough i don't test it all.

~~~
lastbackend
Thanks a lot! I hope you'll like it!

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tomseago
Looks very promising. Like at the "stops me from building something I was
about to build" level of promising. However, to get all the way there I need
to know more about your team and generally anything else you can do that would
build trust that you won't disappear, won't steal my data or access my
servers, and won't get hacked - roughly in that order.

Unfortunately, chances are good that we will need to go with more established
services for now, but we'll definitely be keeping an eye on you guys to see
how things progress.

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Zekio
Looks very promising from my point of view, i do hope you will make site
compatible with project spartan when it is done(both browser and site ofc)

~~~
lastbackend
Hi, Thx! Yeah we are working for spartan support. I hope we'll support it in
few weeks. Can you please send us a more feedback? We need all opinions to
make Last.Backend better and better.

Have a nice day!

~~~
Zekio
the biggest problem while using Project spartan is that the left side bar menu
is not working properly, you can open them and then you can only see is the
"Add new image" button, which doesn't work in project spartan either, but
otherwise it seems everything else seem to work like it does in Developer
edition firefox

~~~
lastbackend
Ok. We'll try to fix it as soon as possible. May I contact you when we'll be
testing spartan supported version?

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bestan
When attaching my servers, the script executed fine. However, none of my
servers are recognised. The list shows (2/1), but displays no names (2 empty
strings that I can choose from). Couldn't get anything working. Anything I am
doing wrong?

P.S. couldn't send any message through neither Intercom nor support button at
the top.

~~~
lastbackend
Intercom will be working on next week. It's strange situation. We'll try to
reproduce on testing stage. Thx you! I notify you via Intercom. Ok?

~~~
vbernat
I got the same problem (login: bernat). Running on plain Ubuntu 14.04. I have
also tried to unlink the agent to relink them, but "Link new" button gives the
landing page where we choose the free/non-free version. So now, I don't have
any server instance...

Also, I didn't log with GitHub because I didn't want to give write access to
anything. You should give the option to only request the email address.

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ape4
Every time somebody proposes a visual programming environment it seems good
until you look at the details.

~~~
lastbackend
With your comments and feedbacks we can create a really good platform. Your
feedback is the most valuable point for us!

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Zekio
Is there going to a be a Desktop App / Version of the site? like with slack
where you have access to the chat in an desktop app and in the browser

Not an ad for slack just the only reference to what i meant i could think of
right now

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chrisabrams
I have no idea how to get started with your app. When I get to the app page,
all I see is this:
[https://cloudup.com/c-7KrbFm_8g](https://cloudup.com/c-7KrbFm_8g)

~~~
lastbackend
Wow.. Something new. How we can contact you to ask more questions? Can you
please send us an email? (In bottom of main page).

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chrisrxth
This is awesome - I feel like this is the future of IaaS user experiences.

~~~
lastbackend
We hope so! :)

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tjbiddle
Any plans to have direct integration with cloud providers (AWS, DO, etc.) so
that the command doesn't need to be run by hand and we can instead just spin
up servers directly?

~~~
lastbackend
Yes. In few weeks will announce DO support, after AWS+Azure.

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Fiahil
Wow, this is beautiful. Quick question, is it possible to have an archive of
the logs for when I want to debug my crashing app? How much can I go back in
time?

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_mikz
Looks amazing. Will try it.

Btw, check the pricing page in Mobile Safari. It looks quite off. The width is
wrong the there is text overlapping in the first panel.

~~~
lastbackend
We'll fixed soon! Our mobile version is not good now. We are focused on it
now.

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jjoe
I'm as ticked off as anyone here regarding the blatant security lapse(s). But
I must confess: The level of tenacity of OP is outstanding in light of all the
strongly worded comments that've been directed at him/her (understandably
deserved w.r.t security). I do think this is a commendable attitude to display
in situations like this. It makes a noticeable difference. Here's hoping OP
will turn things around.

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jkbbwr
Can you add a way to remove linked servers? I have a few ghost linked servers
and they all have the same name

~~~
lastbackend
Oh no... We'll notify you when we'll fix this issue :( Thx for comment.

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Sir_Substance
Why is it necessary for me to sign up? Is it only for your metrics?

Could this have been designed in a fashion that doesn't require me to roll
another bloody account?

Not so interested that I feel like opening one, sorry.

~~~
lastbackend
Hmm.. Why do you think so? Maybe we can discuss it by e-mail or skype. We need
to know what's the reason you thinking so.

~~~
Sir_Substance
It's really quite simple. I'm on an anti-account binge, and have been for a
while.

Primarily, I just hate accounts. I have hundreds of them man. It's absurd. I
don't bother trying to log in to most of them any more, if it's not a service
I use every day I go directly to recovering the username and password, because
I'll never get it in the three or five or 10 tries I'm allowed before the
account is locked/they start giving me captchas. Often enough, that system
breaks, and then I'm left having to email admins and beg them to help. That's
always a fun coin to toss.

So I don't make 'em any more, unless I literally have to. Quite seriously, the
only new account I recall opening in the last two years is with the Australian
government, because it was mandatory to do my tax return via that system.
Maybe there's one or two others, I don't know. _e: I remember the other one,
it 's this one! tada, own goal!_

I'm currently locked out of the government system, because their secret
question/answer system didn't like my answers. I have to call them during
business hours to fix it. I moved to another country recently, so that's going
to be cheap and stuff.

Secondarily, I'm starting to critique peoples use of accounts. Lots of people
implement a username/password system when they don't need it, because it's
easy to do so. As a developer myself, I am taking a stand against lazy
development.

Maybe I don't fully grasp your product (I'll be honest, the instant I saw
"sign up now" my shutters went down), but it seems like a graphical docker
container configuration management tool is less effective as a web app than a
desktop app, and doesn't need an account system either way.

For example, if you're using the accounts for saving flow setups, could that
not be done with a combination of URL parameters (encoding customer specific
data like IP addresses) and page ID's to a key-value database (with the
benefit of data de-duplication), thus allowing me to save my work with a
simple ctrl-d to bookmark it? As a side benefit, I can share it just by
emailing it to people.

Hey, maybe I'm wrong, maybe your system really _does_ need accounts, but I'm
still not going to make one. I have to draw the line somewhere if I want this
endless account sprawl to end.

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Animats
Ooh, pretty! That's going to convince non-technical managers to use this
service. Put that display on a big screen in the manager's office and they'll
think they know what's going on.

A display application like that would be useful for AWS, so you know roughly
what's going on in your rented subcloud. With, of course, both big screen and
phone app versions. From the other comments, it seems that this startup has a
poor container management system but a great visualization tool. There are
lots of container management systems (one written in Go was announced on HN
yesterday) but many are still at the command line level for monitoring. Maybe
this startup should pivot and do "cloud management visualization".

~~~
moe
_A display application like that would be useful for AWS_

Those have existed for a while, e.g. VisualOps[1].

[1] [http://www.visualops.io/feature/](http://www.visualops.io/feature/)

