Tabby

We're used to seeing new terminal emulators appear but not for terminal emulators to appear fully formed and ready to use. Yet this is the case with the brilliantly named Tabby, both for the key you frequently use on the command line and because, we presume, it's a name not dissimilar to that other flashy new terminal emulator, Kitty. But there's a good reason why Tabby has appeared almost fully formed and perfectly usable from day one, and that is because it was already an established project under the name of Terminus. Tabby hopes, as did Terminus, to be a terminal emulator for the modern age. In being so, Tabby offers lots of performance and convenience features that your default terminal from the 1970s might otherwise be lacking. These differences don't make a huge difference on Linux, but they might if you want to use the same terminal across various platforms. Tabby can be easily installed on WSL with PowerShell, Cygwin, and Git Bash, as well as binary clients for Windows, macOS, and of course Linux.

The next reason to use Tabby is convenience. From the first launch, there's very little setup required to create a functional environment. Tabby includes its own SSH and Telnet connection managers, with SFTP and port forwarding, as well as a serial terminal for more conveniently hacking on devices. The main window can split and host multiple sessions with tabs on either side, which is great for both left- and right-handed people, and the tabs themselves can be nested and configured to show progress and notifications. There's also a "quake" mode for sliding the terminal onto a screen edge, much like Yakuake, but without the configuration and the KDE. The same is also true of setting global hotkeys. Plus you can add functionality with plugins and hide secrets in Tabby's own SSH vault. Tabby might not be as good as a fully configured Konsole, but it's better out of the box, especially on non-Linux systems.

Project Website

https://github.com/Eugeny/tabby

In addition to providing dozens of small functions, Tabby is easily themed to fit whichever environment and operating system you're using.

Security threat

ReverseSSH

This is a bit of a cautious find because its most obvious use is to help people gain unauthorized access to a network, which is an action we absolutely don't condone. But neither do we condone security through obscurity because, in our experience, it's always helpful to know what kinds of tools are out there and what they do, especially when they have actual utility. This is the case with ReverseSSH, a project with a particularly descriptive name. ReverseSSH is a modified version of the same SSH server binary that many of us rely on every day to make connections between our various servers, Raspberry Pis, and home automation systems. ReverseSSH has been modified to allow anyone with physical access to a system, and presumably a way to get the binary onto that system, to run the modified server in such a way that an external SSH connection can be made and connected automatically, albeit with a single given password.

This is obviously bad for network security, but if you're worried about such things on your network, there are far more nefarious and less obvious attack vectors, such as manually setting up reverse SSH with netcat. The best way of defending against such things is to limit access to your network. With that out of the way, ReverseSSH can also be a helpful tool because it's a single, easily executable command (reverse-ssh) that enables remote access to a system, with no further configuration. Run the executable on one machine and use SSH on another to access the system. You can then use the shell, transfer files with SFTP, set up port forwarding, and do all the other fun things that SSH allows, all without worrying about security. This can be helpful on a home network or when you absolutely need to accept all incoming connections without the risk of authentication – when used with extreme caution.

Project Website

https://github.com/Fahrj/reverse-ssh

Use the help output to discover the password used to connect to all sessions, which is unique when you build it yourself.