SSH to Your OpenShift Applications From the Browser

OpenShift free plan is an extremely powerful tool that allows its users test and even create a small production run for their web application/project this project might be a simple WordPress blog/small business website or a more complex online store that processes payments (of course more complex projects could be deployed and tested). These applications are covered extensively on howtolearn.me web development section.

Though the web interface for OpenShift is quite powerful and useful but it’s not as powerful as logging into your application through the terminal and carrying out the various operations on your application. Now let’s face it; the terminal might be powerful but it’s cumbersome specially for many beginners, and that’s going to change from this post on.

This guide will present a step by step tutorial on how to install KeyBox on OpenShift, which will make you SSH your OpenShift applications from the browser which will decrease the complexity of logging into your application using the traditional terminal. This guide assumes that you already have an OpenShift application.

 Steps

1. After registering; go to OpenShift home page and click on the “MY APPS” on the top of the screen.
2. You’ll be directed to your log-in window and enter your credentials, you’ll be directed to a new window click on the blue “Create your first application now” link.
3. You’ll be directed to a window, in the search bar type KeyBox.
4. You’ll be directed to a new window, in the public URL; type the name of the project/application name (e.g. SSHLogin, KeyBox, etc.) in the first space and the domain name (it’s not your real domain name, just any identification name e.g. NickName, YourName) in the second space.
5. Leave everything as it’s and click on “Create Application” tab at the end of the page.
6. You shall be re-directed to a new window where you shall find information about your applications.
7. You’ll then be directed to the main window, it’s now time to go to your “web application interface” and start using it, to do that simply click on the blue link at the top of the screen (that’s your URL).
8. You’ll be directed to the “KeyBox” window, enter the credentials (Openshift email and password) of the account you want to access, leave the “OTA Access Code” field empty for now.
9. You’ll be directed to a new window to setup “two factor authentication” if you want to, we shall skip this step in this tutorial though it’s highly recommended to set it up in your case.
10. You’ll be directed to a new window, where you shall find all of the available applications in your OpenShift account, select the application you want to SSH to and then click on the “Create SSH Terminal” tab.
11. You’ll be directed to the main terminal window where you can start having full control over your application utilizing the power of the terminal and the comfort of the browser.