This article will present how to self-host a code streaming server that is independant from the code editor that you use. You won't get a two-way pair-programming solution, only streaming.
The solution relies on Pair-ls - Editor-agnostic remote pair programming. It will involve 4 elements:
- a
Pair-ls
relay server, - a Nginx reverse proxy to make the relay server accessible from the Web
- a
Pair-ls
LSP server (started automatically by your editor) that will stream code to the relay server - a code editor (of you choice!)
Configure the server
Pair-ls service
Download and install pair-ls
binary:
$ wget https://github.com/stevearc/pair-ls/releases/download/v0.1.1/pair-ls-linux64 -O /usr/local/bin/pair-ls
$ chmod +x /usr/local/bin/pair-ls
To have it started by the system, create a Systemd unit file named /etc/systemd/system/pair-ls.service
:
[Unit]
Description=Pair-ls Code Streaming
[Service]
User=nobody
Environment="XDG_CONFIG_HOME=/tmp"
Environment="XDG_CACHE_HOME=/tmp"
ExecStart=pair-ls -config /dev/null -logfile /tmp/pair-ls.log -loglevel 10 relay -port 8888
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
Reload Systemd config and start the service:
systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl enable pair-ls.service
systemctl start pair-ls.service
Nginx reverse proxy
Create a Nginx config file named /etc/nginx/sites-available/pair-ls
. Paste this contents and adjust the server FQDN:
server {
listen 443 ssl;
# Your serveur FQDN
server_name your.domain.tld;
# There will be no static files to serve, so we don't need a root folder
root /dev/null;
server_tokens off;
# The SSL-related stuff
ssl_certificate /path/to/cert.pem;
ssl_certificate_key /path/to/private.key;
# The logs
access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log;
error_log /var/log/nginx/error.log;
# Pass all traffic to the pair-ls daemon listening on port 8888
location / {
proxy_pass http://localhost:8888;
proxy_set_header Host $host;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
proxy_set_header Connection $connection_upgrade;
}
}
Enable the Nginx host and reload the config:
$ ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/pair-ls /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/pair-ls
$ systemctl reload nginx.service
Your code streaming relay is ready. Go to https://your.domain.tld/ to watch the stream.
Configure the editor
Install the editor plugin :
Configure the plugin to start the pair-ls
with the following arguments:
lsp -forward wss://your.domain.tld
You can now start your code streaming session through the plugin command Pair
and stop through PairStop
.
If you don't use VSCode or NeoVim, you can configure your editor to run Pair-ls as a LSP server and connect to it. You'll probably find how to do so in your editor documentation.
Final thoughts
The solution presented here has no access-control at all. That means that anyone knowing the relay server URL will be able to watch your code streaming session.
There are ways to secure this:
- Pair-ls relay server can be configured to prompt for a password on its Web frontend
- Pair-ls LSP server can be configured to be accessed through a token-secured WebRTC connection
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