Inspired by a John Sullivan (of FSF) tweet asking about opinions on the new and shiny MS(TM) GitHub(TM) CLI(TM) tool named “gh”(TM) I wanted to try it out on one of my Ubuntu LTS systems (16.04).
I’ve always disliked the proprietary and centralised monoculture of github, especially after that thing with MS, so I’ve mostly avoided using the service for code I produce myself. If interested in independence and decentralisation maybe you should read up on that long fabled subject? Thus I’ve never even tried the predecessor “hub”(TM) tool (main page), and exactly how it differs from this new “CLI” thing is not obviously apparent from the communications.
Nevertheless, the “gh” tool, officially dubbed GitHub CLI, being distributed under MIT license and written in go(lang) (afterwards, found out that this is indeed also applicable to the predecessing “hub” tool) made me curious enough to go see what they’re up to. Maybe its not that sinister a plot and they really just want to improve the independent and freely available mechanisms for source code storage, distribution and maintenance (I wish)?
TL:DR
A fairly recent (2019-09) version of go, >=1.13, is required so some gymnastics are needed to make stuff work on older distros like Ubuntu’s LTS (with 5 years support from Canonical). Anyway, this is what I did to build a useable “gh” ELF executable (20 MiB!, se below), this is from source, no precompiled stuff, no snaps. It was done on Ubuntu 16.04 (xenial) but I’ve been somewhat careful to inspect that things ought to be good for 18.04 (bionic) too. Non-essential output from the commands is largely discarded here. See Gory Details section below for the full monty.
Add go PPA & install packages
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:longsleep/golang-backports
$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install golang
$ go version
go version go1.13.4 linux/amd64
$ cd
$ git clone https://github.com/cli/cli .githubcli
$ cd .githubcli
$ make
Setup PATH & test
$ echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.githubcli/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bash_profile
$ bash --login
$ gh
Work seamlessly with GitHub from the command line.
GitHub CLI is in early stages of development, and we'd love to hear your
feedback at <https://forms.gle/umxd3h31c7aMQFKG7>
Usage:
gh [command]
Available Commands:
help Help about any command
issue Create and view issues
pr Create, view, and checkout pull requests
repo Create, clone, fork, and view repositories
Flags:
--help Show help for command
-R, --repo OWNER/REPO Select another repository using the OWNER/REPO format
--version Show gh version
Use "gh [command] --help" for more information about a command.
subcommand is required
$
Trying it out
Randomly picked one of my few github repos, it contains some js experiments on parsing NMEA formatted coordinates, rather uninterestingly empty.
Clone
user@host:~$ gh repo clone mikini/coordinates
Notice: authentication required
Press Enter to open github.com in your browser...
<auth session in browser>
Authentication complete. Press Enter to continue...
Cloning into 'coordinates'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 10, done.
remote: Total 10 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 10
Unpacking objects: 100% (10/10), done.
Checking connectivity... done.
user@host:~$
An ordinary OAuth request was spawned for authentication on https://github.com/login/oauth/authorize. The javascript executed in the browser seemed to interact with the gh tool through a local TCP connection on localhost:45454 which was the redirection target on authorisation (URL parameter: “redirect_uri=http://localhost:45454/callback”). The socket was rightfully not bound after the authentication had succeeded but this is definitely an attack vector, albeit hopefully only for locally running processes.
Listing issues & prs
user@host:~$ cd coordinates/
user@host:~$:~/coordinates$ gh issue list
Issues for mikini/coordinates
There are no open issues
miki@vcas-miki2:~/coordinates$ gh pr view
no open pull requests found for branch "master"
miki@vcas-miki2:~/coordinates$
Creating issues
miki@vcas-miki2:~/coordinates$ gh issue create
Creating issue in mikini/coordinates
? Title Testing gh
? Body <Received>
? What's next? Preview in browser
Opening github.com/mikini/coordinates/issues/new/ in your browser.
miki@vcas-miki2:~/coordinates$
miki@vcas-miki2:~/coordinates$ gh issue create
Creating issue in mikini/coordinates
? Title Testing gh tool
? Body <Received>
? What's next? [Use arrows to move, type to filter]
> Preview in browser
Submit
Cancel
https://github.com/mikini/coordinates/issues/1
miki@vcas-miki2:~/coordinates$
On the first issue creation interaction I selected “preview in browser” which opened a draft issue in the browser, and dumped me back into the shell on the command line. The second interaction actually resulted in #1.
Gory Details
PPA options
The golang-backports PPA is maintained independently by Simon Eisenmann (credits: ~longsleep, @github, stdin.xyz) and carries packages up to:
There’s also an official PPA from the golang project (~gophers) which however only carries packages up to 1.11 for both.
Full (mostly) installation dump
Add go PPA, install packages
user@host:~$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:longsleep/golang-backports
Golang 1.8, 1.9, 1.10, 1.11, 1.12, 1.13 and 1.14 PPA for Ubuntu
More info: https://launchpad.net/~longsleep/+archive/ubuntu/golang-backports
Press [ENTER] to continue or ctrl-c to cancel adding it
gpg: keyring `/tmp/tmpvnuym97a/secring.gpg' created
gpg: keyring `/tmp/tmpvnuym97a/pubring.gpg' created
gpg: requesting key 56A3D45E from hkp server keyserver.ubuntu.com
gpg: /tmp/tmpvnuym97a/trustdb.gpg: trustdb created
gpg: key 56A3D45E: public key "Launchpad PPA for Simon Eisenmann" imported
gpg: Total number processed: 1
gpg: imported: 1 (RSA: 1)
OK
user@host:~$
user@host:~$ sudo apt update
Hit:1 http://dk.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial InRelease
Get:2 http://dk.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-updates InRelease [109 kB]
...
...
Get:37 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-security/universe DEP-11 64x64 Icons [194 kB]
Get:38 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-security/multiverse amd64 DEP-11 Metadata [2.468 B]
Fetched 7.614 kB in 3s (2.346 kB/s)
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
419 packages can be upgraded. Run 'apt list --upgradable' to see them.
user@host:~$
user@host:~$ apt list --upgradeable golang -a
Listing... Done
golang/xenial,xenial 2:1.13~1longsleep1+xenial all [upgradable from: 2:1.6-1ubuntu4]
golang/xenial,xenial,now 2:1.6-1ubuntu4 all [installed,upgradable to: 2:1.13~1longsleep1+xenial]
user@host:~$
user@host:~$ sudo apt install golang
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
golang-1.6 golang-1.6-doc golang-1.6-go golang-1.6-src
Use 'sudo apt autoremove' to remove them.
The following additional packages will be installed:
golang-1.13 golang-1.13-doc golang-1.13-go golang-1.13-src golang-doc golang-go golang-src
Recommended packages:
golang-1.13-race-detector-runtime
The following NEW packages will be installed
golang-1.13 golang-1.13-doc golang-1.13-go golang-1.13-src
The following packages will be upgraded:
golang golang-doc golang-go golang-src
4 to upgrade, 4 to newly install, 0 to remove and 413 not to upgrade.
Need to get 60,2 MB of archives.
After this operation, 322 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]
Get:1 http://ppa.launchpad.net/longsleep/golang-backports/ubuntu xenial/main amd64 golang-1.13-src amd64 1.13.4-1longsleep1+xenial [12,7 MB]
Get:2 http://ppa.launchpad.net/longsleep/golang-backports/ubuntu xenial/main amd64 golang-1.13-go amd64 1.13.4-1longsleep1+xenial [44,9 MB]
Get:3 http://ppa.launchpad.net/longsleep/golang-backports/ubuntu xenial/main amd64 golang-1.13-doc all 1.13.4-1longsleep1+xenial [2.542 kB]
Get:4 http://ppa.launchpad.net/longsleep/golang-backports/ubuntu xenial/main amd64 golang-1.13 all 1.13.4-1longsleep1+xenial [25,2 kB]
Get:5 http://ppa.launchpad.net/longsleep/golang-backports/ubuntu xenial/main amd64 golang-src amd64 2:1.13~1longsleep1+xenial [3.838 B]
Get:6 http://ppa.launchpad.net/longsleep/golang-backports/ubuntu xenial/main amd64 golang-go amd64 2:1.13~1longsleep1+xenial [23,0 kB]
Get:7 http://ppa.launchpad.net/longsleep/golang-backports/ubuntu xenial/main amd64 golang-doc all 2:1.13~1longsleep1+xenial [3.880 B]
Get:8 http://ppa.launchpad.net/longsleep/golang-backports/ubuntu xenial/main amd64 golang all 2:1.13~1longsleep1+xenial [3.826 B]
Fetched 60,2 MB in 5s (10,8 MB/s)
Selecting previously unselected package golang-1.13-src.
(Reading database ... 460737 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../golang-1.13-src_1.13.4-1longsleep1+xenial_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking golang-1.13-src (1.13.4-1longsleep1+xenial) ...
Selecting previously unselected package golang-1.13-go.
Preparing to unpack .../golang-1.13-go_1.13.4-1longsleep1+xenial_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking golang-1.13-go (1.13.4-1longsleep1+xenial) ...
Selecting previously unselected package golang-1.13-doc.
Preparing to unpack .../golang-1.13-doc_1.13.4-1longsleep1+xenial_all.deb ...
Unpacking golang-1.13-doc (1.13.4-1longsleep1+xenial) ...
Selecting previously unselected package golang-1.13.
Preparing to unpack .../golang-1.13_1.13.4-1longsleep1+xenial_all.deb ...
Unpacking golang-1.13 (1.13.4-1longsleep1+xenial) ...
Preparing to unpack .../golang-src_2%3a1.13~1longsleep1+xenial_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking golang-src (2:1.13~1longsleep1+xenial) over (2:1.6-1ubuntu4) ...
Preparing to unpack .../golang-go_2%3a1.13~1longsleep1+xenial_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking golang-go (2:1.13~1longsleep1+xenial) over (2:1.6-1ubuntu4) ...
Preparing to unpack .../golang-doc_2%3a1.13~1longsleep1+xenial_all.deb ...
Unpacking golang-doc (2:1.13~1longsleep1+xenial) over (2:1.6-1ubuntu4) ...
Preparing to unpack .../golang_2%3a1.13~1longsleep1+xenial_all.deb ...
Unpacking golang (2:1.13~1longsleep1+xenial) over (2:1.6-1ubuntu4) ...
Processing triggers for man-db (2.7.5-1) ...
Setting up golang-1.13-src (1.13.4-1longsleep1+xenial) ...
Setting up golang-1.13-go (1.13.4-1longsleep1+xenial) ...
Setting up golang-1.13-doc (1.13.4-1longsleep1+xenial) ...
Setting up golang-1.13 (1.13.4-1longsleep1+xenial) ...
Setting up golang-src (2:1.13~1longsleep1+xenial) ...
Setting up golang-go (2:1.13~1longsleep1+xenial) ...
Setting up golang-doc (2:1.13~1longsleep1+xenial) ...
Setting up golang (2:1.13~1longsleep1+xenial) ...
user@host:~$
user@host:~$ go version
go version go1.13.4 linux/amd64
user@host:~$
Clone repo & build
user@host:~$ git clone https://github.com/cli/cli .githubcli
Cloning into '.githubcli'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 168, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (168/168), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (100/100), done.
remote: Total 5577 (delta 93), reused 122 (delta 67), pack-reused 5409
Receiving objects: 100% (5577/5577), 7.53 MiB | 2.61 MiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (3269/3269), done.
Checking connectivity... done.
user@host:~$
user@host:~$ cd .githubcli
user@host:~/.githubcli (master=)$ make
go: downloading github.com/google/shlex v0.0.0-20191202100458-e7afc7fbc510
go: downloading github.com/mitchellh/go-homedir v1.1.0
go: downloading github.com/mattn/go-colorable v0.1.6
go: downloading github.com/spf13/cobra v0.0.6
go: downloading gopkg.in/yaml.v3 v3.0.0-20200121175148-a6ecf24a6d71
go: downloading github.com/mattn/go-isatty v0.0.12
go: downloading golang.org/x/text v0.3.2
go: extracting github.com/mitchellh/go-homedir v1.1.0
go: extracting github.com/mattn/go-colorable v0.1.6
go: extracting github.com/google/shlex v0.0.0-20191202100458-e7afc7fbc510
go: extracting github.com/spf13/cobra v0.0.6
go: extracting github.com/mattn/go-isatty v0.0.12
go: downloading golang.org/x/sys v0.0.0-20200223170610-d5e6a3e2c0ae
go: downloading golang.org/x/crypto v0.0.0-20200219234226-1ad67e1f0ef4
go: downloading github.com/mgutz/ansi v0.0.0-20170206155736-9520e82c474b
go: downloading github.com/briandowns/spinner v1.9.0
go: extracting gopkg.in/yaml.v3 v3.0.0-20200121175148-a6ecf24a6d71
go: downloading github.com/hashicorp/go-version v1.2.0
go: downloading github.com/spf13/pflag v1.0.5
go: downloading github.com/AlecAivazis/survey/v2 v2.0.7
go: downloading github.com/kballard/go-shellquote v0.0.0-20180428030007-95032a82bc51
go: downloading github.com/charmbracelet/glamour v0.1.1-0.20200304134224-7e5c90143acc
go: extracting github.com/mgutz/ansi v0.0.0-20170206155736-9520e82c474b
go: extracting github.com/spf13/pflag v1.0.5
go: extracting github.com/hashicorp/go-version v1.2.0
go: downloading gopkg.in/yaml.v2 v2.2.8
go: downloading github.com/cpuguy83/go-md2man/v2 v2.0.0
go: downloading github.com/henvic/httpretty v0.0.4
go: extracting github.com/kballard/go-shellquote v0.0.0-20180428030007-95032a82bc51
go: extracting github.com/briandowns/spinner v1.9.0
go: extracting github.com/AlecAivazis/survey/v2 v2.0.7
go: downloading github.com/fatih/color v1.7.0
go: extracting github.com/charmbracelet/glamour v0.1.1-0.20200304134224-7e5c90143acc
go: downloading github.com/yuin/goldmark v1.1.24
go: downloading github.com/microcosm-cc/bluemonday v1.0.2
go: extracting gopkg.in/yaml.v2 v2.2.8
go: extracting github.com/henvic/httpretty v0.0.4
go: downloading github.com/olekukonko/tablewriter v0.0.4
go: downloading github.com/muesli/reflow v0.1.0
go: extracting github.com/fatih/color v1.7.0
go: extracting github.com/microcosm-cc/bluemonday v1.0.2
go: extracting github.com/cpuguy83/go-md2man/v2 v2.0.0
go: extracting golang.org/x/sys v0.0.0-20200223170610-d5e6a3e2c0ae
go: extracting github.com/muesli/reflow v0.1.0
go: extracting github.com/olekukonko/tablewriter v0.0.4
go: downloading golang.org/x/net v0.0.0-20200219183655-46282727080f
go: extracting github.com/yuin/goldmark v1.1.24
go: downloading github.com/alecthomas/chroma v0.7.2-0.20200304075647-34d9c7143bf5
go: downloading github.com/mattn/go-runewidth v0.0.8
go: downloading github.com/muesli/termenv v0.4.0
go: downloading github.com/russross/blackfriday/v2 v2.0.1
go: extracting golang.org/x/crypto v0.0.0-20200219234226-1ad67e1f0ef4
go: extracting github.com/mattn/go-runewidth v0.0.8
go: extracting github.com/russross/blackfriday/v2 v2.0.1
go: downloading github.com/shurcooL/sanitized_anchor_name v1.0.0
go: extracting github.com/alecthomas/chroma v0.7.2-0.20200304075647-34d9c7143bf5
go: extracting github.com/shurcooL/sanitized_anchor_name v1.0.0
go: extracting github.com/muesli/termenv v0.4.0
go: downloading github.com/dlclark/regexp2 v1.2.0
go: downloading github.com/lucasb-eyer/go-colorful v1.0.3
go: downloading github.com/google/goterm v0.0.0-20190703233501-fc88cf888a3f
go: downloading github.com/danwakefield/fnmatch v0.0.0-20160403171240-cbb64ac3d964
go: extracting golang.org/x/text v0.3.2
go: extracting github.com/google/goterm v0.0.0-20190703233501-fc88cf888a3f
go: extracting github.com/danwakefield/fnmatch v0.0.0-20160403171240-cbb64ac3d964
go: extracting golang.org/x/net v0.0.0-20200219183655-46282727080f
go: extracting github.com/lucasb-eyer/go-colorful v1.0.3
go: extracting github.com/dlclark/regexp2 v1.2.0
go: finding github.com/spf13/cobra v0.0.6
go: finding github.com/AlecAivazis/survey/v2 v2.0.7
go: finding github.com/henvic/httpretty v0.0.4
go: finding github.com/google/shlex v0.0.0-20191202100458-e7afc7fbc510
go: finding github.com/mgutz/ansi v0.0.0-20170206155736-9520e82c474b
go: finding gopkg.in/yaml.v3 v3.0.0-20200121175148-a6ecf24a6d71
go: finding github.com/spf13/pflag v1.0.5
go: finding github.com/hashicorp/go-version v1.2.0
go: finding github.com/mitchellh/go-homedir v1.1.0
go: finding github.com/briandowns/spinner v1.9.0
go: finding golang.org/x/text v0.3.2
go: finding github.com/cpuguy83/go-md2man/v2 v2.0.0
go: finding github.com/charmbracelet/glamour v0.1.1-0.20200304134224-7e5c90143acc
go: finding github.com/kballard/go-shellquote v0.0.0-20180428030007-95032a82bc51
go: finding github.com/mattn/go-colorable v0.1.6
go: finding gopkg.in/yaml.v2 v2.2.8
go: finding github.com/russross/blackfriday/v2 v2.0.1
go: finding github.com/mattn/go-isatty v0.0.12
go: finding github.com/fatih/color v1.7.0
go: finding golang.org/x/crypto v0.0.0-20200219234226-1ad67e1f0ef4
go: finding github.com/muesli/termenv v0.4.0
go: finding golang.org/x/sys v0.0.0-20200223170610-d5e6a3e2c0ae
go: finding github.com/shurcooL/sanitized_anchor_name v1.0.0
go: finding github.com/yuin/goldmark v1.1.24
go: finding github.com/alecthomas/chroma v0.7.2-0.20200304075647-34d9c7143bf5
go: finding github.com/google/goterm v0.0.0-20190703233501-fc88cf888a3f
go: finding github.com/dlclark/regexp2 v1.2.0
go: finding github.com/lucasb-eyer/go-colorful v1.0.3
go: finding github.com/muesli/reflow v0.1.0
go: finding github.com/microcosm-cc/bluemonday v1.0.2
go: finding github.com/danwakefield/fnmatch v0.0.0-20160403171240-cbb64ac3d964
go: finding github.com/olekukonko/tablewriter v0.0.4
go: finding github.com/mattn/go-runewidth v0.0.8
go: finding golang.org/x/net v0.0.0-20200219183655-46282727080f
user@host:~/.githubcli (master=)$
Cursory inspection of exec
user@host:~/.githubcli (master=)$ ls -l bin/gh
-rwxrwxr-x 1 user user 21097487 Mar 4 18:03 bin/gh
user@host:~/.githubcli (master=)$
user@host:~/.githubcli (master=)$ file bin/gh
bin/gh: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, interpreter /lib64/l, not stripped
user@host:~/.githubcli (master=)$
user@host:~/.githubcli (master=)$ ldd bin/gh
linux-vdso.so.1 => (0x00007ffdc4329000)
libpthread.so.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0 (0x00007fb1018c2000)
libc.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 (0x00007fb1014f8000)
/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007fb101adf000)
user@host:~/.githubcli (master=)$
user@host:~/.githubcli (master=)$ nm -D bin/gh
U abort
00000000004fd140 T _cgo_panic
000000000045bf10 T _cgo_topofstack
00000000004fd190 T crosscall2
U __errno_location
U __fprintf_chk
U fputc
U free
U freeaddrinfo
U fwrite
U gai_strerror
U getaddrinfo
U getnameinfo
U malloc
U mmap
U munmap
U nanosleep
U pthread_attr_destroy
U pthread_attr_getstacksize
U pthread_attr_init
U pthread_cond_broadcast
U pthread_cond_wait
U pthread_create
U pthread_detach
U pthread_mutex_lock
U pthread_mutex_unlock
U pthread_sigmask
U setenv
U sigaction
U sigaddset
U sigemptyset
U sigfillset
U sigismember
U __stack_chk_fail
U stderr
U strerror
U unsetenv
U __vfprintf_chk
user@host:~/.githubcli (master=)$
Setup PATH & test
user@host:~/.githubcli (master=)$ cd
user@host:~$ echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.githubcli/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bash_profile
user@host:~$ bash --login
user@host:~$ gh
Work seamlessly with GitHub from the command line.
GitHub CLI is in early stages of development, and we'd love to hear your
feedback at <https://forms.gle/umxd3h31c7aMQFKG7>
Usage:
gh [command]
Available Commands:
help Help about any command
issue Create and view issues
pr Create, view, and checkout pull requests
repo Create, clone, fork, and view repositories
Flags:
--help Show help for command
-R, --repo OWNER/REPO Select another repository using the OWNER/REPO format
--version Show gh version
Use "gh [command] --help" for more information about a command.
subcommand is required
user@host:~$
