amitu (u/amitu) - Readit News

amitu commented on Show HN: Malai – securely share local TCP services (database/SSH) with others malai.sh/hello-tcp/... · Posted by u/amitu

tauoverpi · 3 months ago

How does fastn handle errors? Is is possible to perform the SQL query client side or does it prevent / add friction for such? Can I visit `/foo/";DROP%20TABLE%20users;/` or does it handle inputs properly?

amitu · 3 months ago

So you can write SQL queries[1] in fastn documents, create dynamic urls[2], get request data[3], or write backend in wasm[4].

The input to sql queries are passed using bind parameters[5], so it should not have SQL injection issue.

FifthTry.com is built using fastn. You can checkout source code if lets-update[6] to see some open source fastn code.

[1]: https://fastn.com/sql/

[2]: https://fastn.com/dynamic-urls/

[3]: https://fastn.com/request-data/

[4]: https://fastn.com/wasm/

[5]: https://github.com/fastn-stack/fastn/blob/b639cdf59dd297f977...

[6]: https://github.com/fifthtry-community/lets-update

amitu commented on Show HN: Malai – securely share local TCP services (database/SSH) with others malai.sh/hello-tcp/... · Posted by u/amitu

devrandoom · 3 months ago

Feedback: This crowd likes technical docs. These docs are nothing like that, and raise more questions than they answer.

amitu · 3 months ago

Completely agree, unfortunately the cool stuff is done by iroh team, so right now you can browse their docs: https://www.iroh.computer/blog/iroh-dns.

amitu commented on Show HN: Malai – securely share local TCP services (database/SSH) with others malai.sh/hello-tcp/... · Posted by u/amitu

hamburglar · 3 months ago

This desperately needs a “how the hell does this work” page for either malai or kulfi (preferably both) because the vibe I’m getting is “it’s magic! Trust us and sign up for an account.”

amitu · 3 months ago

We are using iroh, so you can start with https://www.iroh.computer/blog/iroh-dns, and checkout their docs to understand how iroh itself works.

The malai stuff is relative not very interesting (we write some HTTP/TCP services/proxies that forward their calls over iroh connection, and write the other side to bridge back to HTTP/tcp). Code should help, or come to our discord: https://malai.sh/discord/ (currently it will say fastn, we are in the process of changing it to FifthTry server or something, we do not want to maintain multiple discord servers, and thinking of putting all FifthTry open source stuff on a single discord server).

amitu commented on Show HN: Malai – securely share local TCP services (database/SSH) with others malai.sh/hello-tcp/... · Posted by u/amitu

lxgr · 3 months ago

What's id52?

I feel like I'm missing a lot of context to understand what's being shared here.

amitu · 3 months ago

We are built on top of https://www.iroh.computer/blog/iroh-dns, and iroh uses the public key as the node identifier. Unfortunately the iroh id is 64 char long, which can not be used in subdomains, subdomains have a char limit of 63, so we are using dnssec base32[1], which comes to 52 chars, and we use that 52 char string as the primary identifier (instead of IP:port, which is used the "old school net" (tongue firmly in cheek), and we call it id52.

https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc5155/

amitu commented on Show HN: Malai – securely share local TCP services (database/SSH) with others malai.sh/hello-tcp/... · Posted by u/amitu

snihalani · 3 months ago

what problem does this solve over ngrok/tailserve?

amitu · 3 months ago

It's open source. Or not depending on any company[1]. The overall malai/kulfi project is quite different than these projects, malai itself can be compared with these two maybe.

[1]: we are built on top of https://www.iroh.computer so their caveats apply, and while we do run a http-over-kulfi over http-over-tcp bridge, you do not have to use it, you can run your own, and soon when kulfi browser is ready, you will not need the bridge. Checkout this work in progress kulfi browser: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qw_GmbtxCHw

amitu commented on Show HN: Malai – securely share local TCP services (database/SSH) with others malai.sh/hello-tcp/... · Posted by u/amitu

ryao · 3 months ago

> It can be used to secure your SSH service, or securely share your database server.

SSH is one of the most secure network daemons ever devised. This is not to say that there is never any need to harden SSH, but given that people usually secure services behind SSH, I find the words “secure your SSH service” strange.

That said, I am no stranger to bastion/jump hosts, but those usually involve accessing one ssh host through another ssh host.

amitu · 3 months ago

You are on the right track, this is bastion like setup, but without needing another ssh host. This is one layer on top of SSH, so all SSH security applies for ssh over kulfi, but you get extra benefits like not having to expose SSH port to public, or not having guessable identifier (the IP address).

amitu commented on Show HN: Malai – securely share local TCP services (database/SSH) with others malai.sh/hello-tcp/... · Posted by u/amitu

tkj922 · 3 months ago

This is insane. I dug and the site led me to another site, which led me to another site, which is supposedly a video conferencing suite. All code is skeleton, e.g. how on earth is that supposed to work?

-- import: fastn

-- fastn.package: lets-talk-template.fifthtry.site

-- fastn.dependency: lets-talk.fifthtry.site provided-via: lets-talk-template.fifthtry.site/lets-talk

-- fastn.dependency: design-system.fifthtry.site provided-via: lets-talk-template.fifthtry.site/ds

-- fastn.dependency: lets-auth.fifthtry.site

-- fastn.app: Lets Auth App mount-point: /-/auth/ package: lets-auth.fifthtry.site

-- fastn.app: Lets Talk App mount-point: / package: lets-talk.fifthtry.site

amitu · 3 months ago

Looks like you got sucked into the fastn world. It's an open source full stack web development programming language we have created: fastn.com. We are building some fastn powered full stack, reusable apps, that you can plug in any fastn powered website at https://github.com/fifthtry-community.

The website, kulfi.app and malai.sh, and fastn.com itself, and FifthTry.com as well are all built using fastn.

amitu commented on Show HN: Malai – securely share local TCP services (database/SSH) with others malai.sh/hello-tcp/... · Posted by u/amitu

OJFord · 3 months ago

Yep, just wondered if there was some analogy/joke like malai is the layer on top and kulfi is.. I don't know, the rod that connects A to B or something (that's nonsense, but that's why I was asking!)

Anyway, project seems great and all, but I'll wait for pista. :)

amitu · 3 months ago

Since its built in Rust, we can call it rus(t)-malai also :-)

amitu commented on Show HN: Malai – securely share local TCP services (database/SSH) with others malai.sh/hello-tcp/... · Posted by u/amitu

replwoacause · 3 months ago

Malai website says it is created by FifthTry. On the FifthTry website is says you are backed by Y Combinator: https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/fifthtry

But it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the current company? Are you a Notion-like editor still? Because the editor section of the site says “coming soon” even though your YC page says you were in the Winter 2021 batch. I guess I’m not really clear on any of this and how it relates to Malai.

amitu · 3 months ago

So let's see, I am Amit Upadhyay, I am the (solo) founder and CEO of FifthTry, which is YC W21 company (we also have some other seed investment). We started with a documentation tool, the Notion like you mentioned, caveat: it was not WYSWYG, it was always based on a "language". The language was initially called ftd (FifthTry Document), and eventually fastn.com. fastn started as markdown++, but became a full stack web development language. We moved from being just a documentation tool to general purpose website building tool. FifthTry.com is now a hosting solution for fastn powered websites and webapps.

fastn is done in Rust, and has relatively small foot print. It is language, compiler, package manager, web server, wasm runner, all in one, and technically can run on say a mobile device, on a "Amazon Fire Stick" like mini TV module, you webcam and so on. fastn is probably the only web server you can run on those devices (not yet tested, but it should be).

The issue is those web servers do not have public IPs (nor should they, as that can expose them to security risks), so we are building a peer to peer network, an identity based network, so you do not have to have accessible IP/port to access the web service.

The network we are calling Kulfi net, and malai is a network toolkit for kulfi net, it exposes various services (TCP/HTTP) over kulfi net.

Kulfi itself is going to be a browser, that can talk kulfi protocol natively (as currently we need a "http bridge", eg kulfi.site that we are running, or you can install malai and run on your server).

Kulfi "browser", will also come with fastn built in, so you can run a web server on your phone and someone else can access that web server from another phone, talking http over kulfi protocol, and we can get near ideal networking solution (no intermediary, no need for public IP, etc).

Does this make sense?

amitu commented on Show HN: Malai – securely share local TCP services (database/SSH) with others malai.sh/hello-tcp/... · Posted by u/amitu

aidenn0 · 3 months ago

Iroh requires relay servers; so wouldn't Malai need those?

amitu · 3 months ago

Yes, we are currently using iroh provided relay servers. malai will soon connect with any relay server, so in future you can use ones provided by us, or run your own.