Install, configure and run JetBrains IDEs with Projector Server on Linux or in WSL
Install, configure and run JetBrains IDEs with Projector Server on Linux or in WSL.
Latest release | Sources | Changelog
To use projector-installer you need machine with Linux (or WSL) and with Python 3.6 or higher. Before install projector-installer make sure that:
python3, pip3 and necessary packages are installed in your system. In Debian-based distributions you can install them using the command:
sudo apt install python3 python3-pip python3-cryptography python3-netifaces -y
In CentOS use commands:
# CentOS 8+
sudo dnf install python3 python3-pip python3-pyOpenSSL python3-cryptography python3-netifaces -y
# CentOS 7 / Amazon Linux 2
sudo yum install python3 python3-pip pyOpenSSL python-cryptography -y
Update pip.
For Debian-based distributions run
python3 -m pip install -U pip
For CentOS use command:
python3 -m pip install -U pip --user
Make sure that you have installed the following packages:
less
libxext6
libxi6
libxrender1
libxtst6
libfreetype6
For Debian-based distributions you can install them using the command:
sudo apt install less libxext6 libxrender1 libxtst6 libfreetype6 libxi6 -y
For CentOS use command:
sudo yum install less libXext libXrender libXtst libXi freetype -y
You can install projector-installer script from PyPi, using command:
pip3 install projector-installer --user
projector script will be installed in ~/.local/bin directory. To make it available
on Debian-based systems run:
source ~/.profile
for CentOS run:
source ~/.bash_profile
The command projector should be available now.
NOTE: If it is not so, please refer to the appropriate section in the FAQ.
NOTE: projector script checks for updates on start. If a new version is available, you can install an update using
command
pip3 install projector-installer --upgrade --user
The first time you run projector, it will automatically download, install, configure and start IDE. Just run projector and follow the instructions. The script will run the installed IDE with projector-server and display URLs to access it. Open a URL in your browser and use IDE as usual.
To run IDE again use projector run
To install a new IDE run projector install
To find out which JetBrains IDEs are supported, run projector find
To get help projector commands run projector --help
If you want to know more on projector usage please refer to this file.
SECURITY WARNING: Keep your projector config directory safe when using domain certificate and private key! Do not share its content with anybody!
Installer is able to make run config use HTTPS for accessing a built-in HTTP server and WSS to communicate with the Projector server. Using a secure connection may be a good idea because some JavaScript features are not available in insecure environments, for example: Asynchronous Clipboard API. So using Projector with insecure protocols may limit its functionality.
To enable this feature user should modify existing run config with install-certificate command.
There are several options:
projector install-certificate config_name --certificate /path/to/cert.pem --key /path/to/privatekey.pem
In rare cases this command may fail, if installer is not able to obtain full certificate chain. In this case user should provide intermediate certificate chain explicitly, using command
projector install-certificate config_name --certificate /path/to/cert.pem --key /path/to/privatekey.pem --chain /path/to/chain.pem
Note: Do not forget to use domain name or IP address, included to certificate to access Projector.
projector install-certificate config_name --certificate /path/to/cert.pem --key /path/to/privatekey.pem
Do not forget to add the certificate to your browser if it was not done before.
projector install-certificate config_name
Using a secure connection with autogenerated certificate requires telling the browser that it should trust the certificate. One of the ways to do it is to do it forcefully. Open the page, see the warning about unknown certificate, find a button like "trust it anyway", and click it. After it, you will probably get a message like "can't connect to wss://host:port". Please change wss to https, open it in a new tab, and click the "trust" button too. After performing these two actions, the browser should remember this connection and you won't have to perform these actions again. Just open the initial web page and use all functionality of Projector.
projector-installer keeps downloaded IDE and run configurations in the configuration directory. Usually configuration
directory is ~/.projector. User can specify another location for it, using option --config-directory, for example:
projector --config-directory=config run
Projector installer can't support automatic Android Studio installation due to legal issues. However, installer can help
you to configure already installed Android Studio to use with Projector. To make new run config for Android Studio
use the projector config add
command.
NOTE: Please take into account, that Projector uses JVM, bundled with IDE and supports Java 11 only. Most of Android Studio IDE shipped with Java 1.8, so they are incompatible with Projector. However, starting from version 4.2 (still in EAP), Google ships Java 11 with Android Studio. So Android Studio ver. 4.2 and later can be run with projector.
Example:
$projector config add
Enter a new configuration name: AndroidStudio
Do you want to choose a Projector-installed IDE? [y/n]: n
Enter the path to IDE: /path/to/your/android-studio
...
Default instruction installs projector script in directory ~/.local/bin. If system can't find the script after
installation it means that the directory ~/.local/bin was not included in the PATH environment variable.
Try the following:
Restart the terminal. If projector was the first executable installed in ~/.local/bin, and the directory wasn't
exist when your login session started, it may help.
In some Linux distributions the directory ~/.local/bin not included in the PATH
environment variable. In this case add export PATH=${PATH}:~/.local/bin to your ~/.profile
and run source ~/.profile.
WSL is new technology and sometimes there are problems with network interfaces forwarding from Linux to Windows system. For example: https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/4636 .
If you have issues with accessing Projector running in WSL from the browser, try the following:
Do not use several WSL machines in the same time. Connectivity issues rarely happens if only one WSL machine is
running. You can check state of existing WSL machines using wsl -l -v command.
Try command Get-Service LxssManager | Restart-Service in PowerShell console
Restart your WSL environment:
wsl --shutdown
and start your linux console again.
WARNING! The wsl --shutdown command will close all Linux consoles. Save your work before stopping WSL!
Using docker service with WSL2 backend can cause connectivity issues. Try to disable it and restart WSL terminal.
Use address other than localhost. Usually WSL have problems forwarding localhost interface only. Try to use listening
address other than localhost. You can assign HTTP listening address during initial installation or using
projector config edit command.
Straightforward creating systemd service to automatically start Projector in the background, lead to projector zombie process. You can avoid this using projector generated run script instead of using projector run command. For details refer to the answer of this issue.
To change run config (for example - change listening port or access password) use command
projector config edit
Probably your run configuration uses "tested" update channel.
Try change update channel to not_tested.
You can inspect view update channel using projector config show command and
change it via projector config edit.
projector-installer since ver. 1.1.0 has FreeBSD support. To run Projector on FreeBSD perform the following steps (tested on FreeBSD-RELEASE 12.2):
sudo pkg install python37
sudo pkg install py37-pip
sudo pkg install py37-cryptography
sudo pkg install openjdk11
Do not forget add to fstab fdeskfs and procfs:
fdesk /dev/fd fdeskfs rw 0 0
proc /proc procfs rw 0 0
and mount them:
mount -a
pip may fire several warning messages on incompatible cryptography module. You can safely ignore them.
add ~/.local/bin directory to PATH variable.
run projector as usual
projector-installer since ver. 1.1.0 has OpenBSD support. To run Projector on OpenBSD perform the following steps (tested on OpenBSD 6.8):
it is expected, that filesets xbase, xfont, xserv and xshare are already installed in your system. If it is not so add them as described here: https://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq4.html#FilesNeeded
install python 3.7 or later:
doas pkg_add python
doas pkg_add py3-pip
Do not forget to make the symbolic link for installed pip to /usr/local/bin/pip.
doas pkg_add py3-cryptography
doas pkg_add jdk
Do not forget to define JAVA_HOME variable and add $JAVA_HOME/bin to PATH variable.
pip install projector-installer
add ~/.local/bin directory to PATH variable.
run projector as usual
It's not recommended to manually modify config file. Please use the projector config edit command.
But, if you edited config.ini file, do not forget to run projector config rebuild command to apply manual changes to runconfig.
To generate new certificate run projector config rebuild command for desired config.
FAQs
Install, configure and run JetBrains IDEs with Projector Server on Linux or in WSL
We found that projector-installer demonstrated a healthy version release cadence and project activity because the last version was released less than a year ago. It has 1 open source maintainer collaborating on the project.
Did you know?
Socket for GitHub automatically highlights issues in each pull request and monitors the health of all your open source dependencies. Discover the contents of your packages and block harmful activity before you install or update your dependencies.
Security News
PyPI confirms no security flaws were exploited in the Ultralytics supply chain attack and highlights improvements for safer package publishing.
Security News
Research
The Socket Research Team breaks down a malicious wrapper package that uses obfuscation to harvest credentials and exfiltrate sensitive data.
Research
Security News
Attackers used a malicious npm package typosquatting a popular ESLint plugin to steal sensitive data, execute commands, and exploit developer systems.