kuob 1.0.1

a Fork of ASCIINEMA Terminal session recorder

kuob

A fork of the awesome project ASCIINEMA Terminal session recorder. kuob.sh.

Quick intro

kuob lets you easily record terminal sessions and replay them in a terminal as well as in a web browser.

Install latest version:

sudo pip3 install kuob

Record your first session:

kuob rec first.cast

Now replay it with double speed:

kuob play -s 2 first.cast

Or with normal speed but with idle time limited to 2 seconds:

kuob play -i 2 first.cast

You can pass -i 2 to kuob rec as well, to set it permanently on a recording. Idle time limiting makes the recordings much more interesting to watch. Try it.

If you want to watch and share it on the web, upload it:

kuob upload first.cast

The above uploads it to kuob.sh instance, and prints a secret link you can use to watch your recording in a web browser.

You can record and upload in one step by omitting the filename:

kuob rec

You'll be asked to confirm the upload when the recording is done. Nothing is sent anywhere without your consent.

These are the basics, but there's much more you can do. The following sections cover installation, usage and hosting of the recordings in more detail.

Installation

Python package

kuob is available on PyPI and can be installed with pip (Python 3 with setuptools required):

sudo pip3 install kuob

This is the recommended way of installation, which gives you the latest released version.

Usage

kuob is composed of multiple commands, similar to git, apt-get or brew.

When you run kuob with no arguments help message is displayed, listing all available commands with their options.

rec [filename]

Record terminal session.

By running kuob rec [filename] you start a new recording session. The command (process) that is recorded can be specified with -c option (see below), and defaults to $SHELL which is what you want in most cases.

You can temporarily pause recording of terminal by pressing Ctrl+P. This is useful when you want to execute some commands during the recording session that should not be captured (e.g. pasting secrets). Resume by pressing Ctrl+P again.

Recording finishes when you exit the shell (hit Ctrl+D or type exit). If the recorded process is not a shell then recording finishes when the process exits.

If the filename argument is omitted then (after asking for confirmation) the resulting asciicast is uploaded to kuob-server (by default to kuob.sh), where it can be watched and shared.

If the filename argument is given then the resulting recording (called asciicast) is saved to a local file. It can later be replayed with kuob play <filename> and/or uploaded to kuob server with kuob upload <filename>.

KUOB_REC=1 is added to recorded process environment variables. This can be used by your shell's config file (.bashrc, .zshrc) to alter the prompt or play a sound when the shell is being recorded.

Available options:

• --stdin - Enable stdin (keyboard) recording (see below)
• --append - Append to existing recording
• --raw - Save raw STDOUT output, without timing information or other metadata
• --overwrite - Overwrite the recording if it already exists
• -c, --command=<command> - Specify command to record, defaults to $SHELL
• -e, --env=<var-names> - List of environment variables to capture, defaults to SHELL,TERM
• -t, --title=<title> - Specify the title of the asciicast
• -i, --idle-time-limit=<sec> - Limit recorded terminal inactivity to max <sec> seconds
• -y, --yes - Answer "yes" to all prompts (e.g. upload confirmation)
• -q, --quiet - Be quiet, suppress all notices/warnings (implies -y)

Stdin recording allows for capturing of all characters typed in by the user in the currently recorded shell. This may be used by a player (e.g. kuob-player) to display pressed keys. Because it's basically a key-logging (scoped to a single shell instance), it's disabled by default, and has to be explicitly enabled via --stdin option.

play <filename>

Replay recorded asciicast in a terminal.

This command replays given asciicast (as recorded by rec command) directly in your terminal.

Following keyboard shortcuts are available:

• Space - toggle pause,
• . - step through a recording a frame at a time (when paused),
• Ctrl+C - exit.

Playing from a local file:

kuob play /path/to/asciicast.cast

Playing from HTTP(S) URL:

kuob play https://kuob.sh/a/22124.cast
kuob play http://example.com/demo.cast

Playing from asciicast page URL (requires <link rel="alternate" type="application/x-asciicast" href="/my/ascii.cast"> in page's HTML):

kuob play https://kuob.sh/a/22124
kuob play http://example.com/blog/post.html

Playing from stdin:

cat /path/to/asciicast.cast | kuob play -
ssh user@host cat asciicast.cast | kuob play -

Playing from IPFS:

kuob play dweb:/ipfs/QmNe7FsYaHc9SaDEAEXbaagAzNw9cH7YbzN4xV7jV1MCzK/ascii.cast

Available options:

• -i, --idle-time-limit=<sec> - Limit replayed terminal inactivity to max <sec> seconds
• -s, --speed=<factor> - Playback speed (can be fractional)

For the best playback experience it is recommended to run kuob play in a terminal of dimensions not smaller than the one used for recording, as there's no "transcoding" of control sequences for new terminal size.

cat <filename>

Print full output of recorded asciicast to a terminal.

While kuob play <filename> replays the recorded session using timing information saved in the asciicast, kuob cat <filename> dumps the full output (including all escape sequences) to a terminal immediately.

kuob cat existing.cast >output.txt gives the same result as recording via kuob rec --raw output.txt.

upload <filename>

Upload recorded asciicast to kuob.sh site.

This command uploads given asciicast (recorded by rec command) to kuob.sh, where it can be watched and shared.

kuob rec demo.cast + kuob play demo.cast + kuob upload demo.cast is a nice combo if you want to review an asciicast before publishing it on kuob.sh.

auth

Link your install ID with your kuob.sh user account.

If you want to manage your recordings (change title/theme, delete) at kuob.sh you need to link your "install ID" with kuob.org user account.

This command displays the URL to open in a web browser to do that. You may be asked to log in first.

Install ID is a random ID (UUID v4) generated locally when you run kuob for the first time, and saved at $HOME/.config/kuob/install-id. Its purpose is to connect local machine with uploaded recordings, so they can later be associated with kuob.sh account. This way we decouple uploading from account creation, allowing them to happen in any order.

A new install ID is generated on each machine and system user account you use kuob on, so in order to keep all recordings under a single kuob.sh account you need to run kuob auth on all of those machines.

kuob versions prior to 2.0 confusingly referred to install ID as "API token".

Configuration file

You can configure kuob by creating config file at $HOME/.config/kuob/config.

Configuration is split into sections ([api], [record], [play]). Here's a list of all available options for each section:

[api]

; API server URL, default: https://kuob.sh
; If you run your own instance of kuob-server then set its address here
; It can also be overriden by setting KUOB_API_URL environment variable
url = https://kuob.example.com

[record]

; Command to record, default: $SHELL
command = /bin/bash -l

; Enable stdin (keyboard) recording, default: no
stdin = yes

; List of environment variables to capture, default: SHELL,TERM
env = SHELL,TERM,USER

; Limit recorded terminal inactivity to max n seconds, default: off
idle_time_limit = 2

; Answer "yes" to all interactive prompts, default: no
yes = true

; Be quiet, suppress all notices/warnings, default: no
quiet = true

[play]

; Playback speed (can be fractional), default: 1
speed = 2

; Limit replayed terminal inactivity to max n seconds, default: off
idle_time_limit = 1

[notifications]

; Should desktop notifications be enabled, default: yes
enabled = no

; Custom notification command
; Environment variable $TEXT contains notification text
command = tmux display-message "$TEXT"

A very minimal config file could look like that:

[record]
idle_time_limit = 2

Config directory location can be changed by setting $KUOB_CONFIG_HOME environment variable.

If $XDG_CONFIG_HOME is set on Linux then kuob uses $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/kuob instead of $HOME/.config/kuob.

kuob versions prior to 1.1 used $HOME/.kuob. If you have it there you should mv $HOME/.kuob $HOME/.config/kuob.

Origional ASCIINEMA Authors

Developed with passion by Marcin Kulik and great open source contributors.