Xgineer Solutions, Inc

Web Shell

Web development can be often be frustrating depending on the tools your given. This is especially true when dealing with a shared server environment as one does not normally have any access to a shell of any kind. All that is typically available is FTP and a web server. This can make installing/maintaining software on a shared server (ie. Symfony framework) quite difficult, since it is often easier to just run a simple command directly on the server. Hence, the need for a web shell.

A web shell is a utility that gives you the ability to run commands, like tar and mkdir, directly on a remote machine via a web server and HTTP messages. Of course, this tool would not replace something like SSH. When SSH is not an option though, having a web shell can make life a lot easier. For instance, it’s much faster to compress a large folder into an archive, upload that single file to the server via FTP, and then extract it on the server, rather than uploading the whole folder over FTP since FTP sends each file one by one.

Now, there are certainly a few other web shells out there, but none of them have the ability to allow the commands to read from Standard Input. Also, the commands have to wait until it finishes to completely get the output. The tool we made provides such abilities, plus it has command completion. It also has a directory browser in which you can download, upload, and edit files in folder on the server merely for convenience.

Our web shell is built on PHP and should work on any Linux server, plus we’re releasing it as open source. Due to the nature of a web shell, it still has a few limitations, like you can’t execute certain commands like ssh, but we find it more than useful regardless of such limitations.

The current state of the web shell is beta, so they may be bugs. We certainly welcome feedback on bugs or any improvements.

For see a complete list of features and limitations, http://red.xgineer.com/wiki/webshell/Web_Shell

Download it from here: http://red.xgineer.com/wiki/webshell/Download

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Well, it’s been about seven months since Xgineer Solutions was created, and we are off to a great start – moving faster than we ever anticipated! We’ve been able to be a part of some very diverse projects using all sorts of technologies. We’re working with a San Diego real estate company, modernizing their business with an Adobe AIR application that will streamline and simplify the way their customers operate. With their new AIR product and ongoing support, Xgineer Solutions continues to help them revolutionize their industry. This is why we love what we do.

We are also thrilled to have partnered up with a Bay Area startup company working on a very creative new web 2.0 venture. We’ll be utilizing PHP, MySql, AJAX, Google maps integration and other technologies that bring out the geek in us. The Xgineer Solutions team is excited to have earned the opportunity to build this new product. This has required us to staff up and add more outstanding Xgineers to our team. In addition, we moved into our first office right smack in the middle of San Diego’s historic Gaslamp Quarter, located downtown. Our new place has a great view of the city and the energy here inspires us even more.

We are learning and growing so much and can’t wait to work with even more great companies. Xgineer Solutions aims to show all companies in any market how to utilize technology to realize their full potential. We welcome you to contact us to discuss how we may help take you and your business to the next level.

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