Client Usage

Connect

Pass the server host and port to the client:

./client 10.255.255.254 8080

For a server running on the same machine:

./client 127.0.0.1 8080

The client opens a TCP connection and waits for the server's authentication challenge.

Authenticate

Enter a username and password already present in data/users.txt on the server. A successful login returns a random session token, which the client keeps for the connection.

Enter username: admin
Enter password: ********
Authentication successful!
remote>

Authentication failure closes the session. Confirm the username, recreate the user if necessary, and reconnect.

Execute commands

Commands are parsed by the server and launched with execvp. Standard output and standard error are captured through a pipe and sent back to the client.

remote> whoami
devuser

remote> ls -la
total 212
drwxr-xr-x ...

Navigate directories

cd is handled directly by the server because changing directory in a short-lived command child would not affect later commands.

remote> pwd
/home/dev/Easy-RSH

remote> cd /tmp
Changed directory to: /tmp

remote> pwd
/tmp

The working directory belongs to the server-side client handler. In fork mode, each connected client receives its own process state.

End a session

Enter exit to leave the interactive client, or use the normal terminal interrupt if the server is unavailable.

remote> exit

Practical limits

• The protocol uses fixed-size receive buffers rather than a framed streaming protocol.
• Shell operators such as pipes and redirects are not interpreted by a shell when commands are launched directly with execvp.
• Commands run with the operating-system privileges of the server process.
• Traffic, including credentials and command output, is not TLS encrypted.