RemoteStash

This implement a simple tool to enable sharing of picture or text between a phone and a computer with a shell. It is intended to substitute for AirDrop on a non apple computer, typically linux.

You can read the background on the tool here and see a video demo here.

It is a simple tool, it is not intended to be fancy and it is open source so hopefully people can enhance it if needed or it may provide some help about how to put such a simple utility together.

It contains a python script to run on the shell and a companion iPhone app.

Installation

remotestash utility

You will need to have a linux or macos computer with python3 installed and with zeroconf module available.

Linux/Debian

On a debian system, it is you can install python3, pip3 and zeroconf as follows:

sudo apt install python3 python3-pip
sudo pip3 install zeroconf

You can then also if you want setup your system to automatically have a server running by editing the remotestash.service appriopriately, copying it into /etc/systemd/system and running the following

sudo systemctl enable remotestash
sudo systemctl start remotestash

Macos

You can install python3 using brew as follows

brew install python3
pip3 install zeroconf

Certificate files

In order for the server to work, you will need to copy a certificate and key file to the ~/.remotestash directory. You can also create new ones with the command, assuming the directory ~/.remotestash exists already:

cd ~/.remotestash
openssl req -newkey rsa:2048 -new -nodes -x509 -days 3650 -keyout remotestash-key.pem -out remotestash-cert.pem

The iOS App

You will need to install the requires pods with cocoapods and open with xcode

pod install
open remotestash.xcworkspace

The Command Line utility

RemoteStash on a computer is used via the command line tool remotestash. It is a single python script can be run from anywhere. It requires python 3 and has a dependency on the zeroconf package which you'll need to install typically using pip3 install zeroconf.

The remotestash command can run in two mode: a client mode to push or pull information to a stash and a server mode that provide a service for clients to pull or push information to

Server mode

You can run remotestash serve and this will start a server which will advertise itself on the network. By default it will name itself 'USERNAME RemoteStash', but you can use the option -n myname to specify the name to use. You could run the command as a service on your machine or manually from a terminal.

The server will behave like a stack, each item you push will move on top of the previous ones. You can then pull them out, in that case each pull yields the next item until the stack is empty. Or you can ask for the last one, in which case each query for last returns the same item.

Client mode

If you have a server running on a machine or the app open on your phone (which will then run a server as well), you can use remotestash as a client with the following commands:

• remotestash push path/to/file or echo 'text' | remotestash push to push the corresponding information to the server.

• remotestash pull or remotestash pull path/to/file to pull the last information from the server.

In general, the remotestash client will connect to the first server it finds on the network, but if multiple exist you can specify the one your want with the -n option. The command remotestash list will try to discover all the servers available on the network. You can use the option -l in which case, the client will use a local stack without using the network. Not sure how useful this is, but it was mostly for debugging as it's using the same logic the server uses to maintain its stash.

The iPhone app

The iphone app can behave as a client to a remotestash server or as a server itself.

Client mode

The app will present a text field or an image view depending on what is in the clipboard when it starts. The user interface is split into the Local and the Remote area. The local area represent what is in the phone and remote the server. You can use the push button to send the current content to the server. And pull or get the last item from the server onto your phone.

The current item on your phone can also be shared on your phone by clicking on the icon , which can be useful if you pull an image from the server for example to save it in your Photos app.

The app also provide a share extension, so if you have a safari page opened or a photo display the standard sharing menu from iOS will give you the option to use RemoteStash and share it to a running server on a computer or another phone.

Server mode

When the app is opened it will start a server and advertise it on the network. So the remotestash command line tool will be able to pull item from the phone without the need for an existing server. Note that as soon as the app is closed or in the background the server will stop as well.