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Coder Desktop

Coder Desktop

Beta

Use Coder Desktop to work on your workspaces as though they're on your LAN, no port-forwarding required.

Note

Coder Desktop requires a Coder deployment running v2.20.0 or later.

Install Coder Desktop

Configure

Before you can use Coder Desktop, you will need to sign in.

  1. Open the Desktop menu and select Sign in:

  2. In the Sign In window, enter your Coder deployment's URL and select Next:

    Coder Desktop sign in

  3. macOS: Select the link to your deployment's /cli-auth page to generate a session token.

    Windows: Select Generate a token via the Web UI.

  4. In your web browser, you may be prompted to sign in to Coder with your credentials:

    Sign in to your Coder deployment

  5. Copy the session token to the clipboard:

    Copy session token

  6. Paste the token in the Session Token field of the Sign In screen, then select Sign In:

    Paste the session token in to sign in

  7. macOS: Allow the VPN configuration for Coder Desktop if you are prompted:

    Copy session token

  8. Select the Coder icon in the menu bar (macOS) or system tray (Windows), and click the Coder Connect toggle to enable the connection.

    Coder Desktop on Windows - enable Coder Connect

    This may take a few moments, as Coder Desktop will download the necessary components from the Coder server if they have been updated.

  9. macOS: You may be prompted to enter your password to allow Coder Connect to start.

  10. Coder Connect is now running!

Coder Connect

While active, Coder Connect will list the workspaces you own and will configure your system to connect to them over private IPv6 addresses and custom hostnames ending in .coder.

Coder Desktop list of workspaces

To copy the .coder hostname of a workspace agent, you can click the copy icon beside it.

You can also connect to the SSH server in your workspace using any SSH client, such as OpenSSH or PuTTY:

ssh your-workspace.coder

Any services listening on ports in your workspace will be available on the same hostname. For example, you can access a web server on port 8080 by visiting http://your-workspace.coder:8080 in your browser.

Note

Currently, the Coder IDE extensions for VSCode and JetBrains create their own tunnel and do not utilize the Coder Connect tunnel to connect to workspaces.

Ping your workspace

Sync a local directory with your workspace

Coder Desktop file sync provides bidirectional synchronization between a local directory and your workspace. You can work offline, add screenshots to documentation, or use local development tools while keeping your files in sync with your workspace.

  1. Create a new local directory.

    If you select an existing clone of your repository, Desktop will recognize it as conflicting files.

  2. In the Coder Desktop app, select File sync.

    Coder Desktop File Sync screen

  3. Select the + in the corner to select the local path, workspace, and remote path, then select Add:

    Coder Desktop File Sync add paths

  4. File sync clones your workspace directory to your local directory, then watches for changes:

    Coder Desktop File Sync watching

    For more information about the current status, hover your mouse over the status.

File sync excludes version control system directories like .git/ from synchronization, so keep your Git-cloned repository wherever you run Git commands. This means that if you use an IDE with a built-in terminal to edit files on your remote workspace, that should be the Git clone and your local directory should be for file syncs.

Note

Coder Desktop uses alpha and beta to distinguish between the:

  • Local directory: alpha
  • Remote directory: beta

File sync conflicts

File sync shows a Conflicts status when it detects conflicting files.

You can hover your mouse over the status for the list of conflicts:

Desktop file sync conflicts mouseover

If you encounter a synchronization conflict, delete the conflicting file that contains changes you don't want to keep.

Accessing web apps in a secure browser context

Some web applications require a secure context to function correctly. A browser typically considers an origin secure if the connection is to localhost, or over HTTPS.

As Coder Connect uses its own hostnames and does not provide TLS to the browser, Google Chrome and Firefox will not allow any web APIs that require a secure context.

Note

Despite the browser showing an insecure connection without HTTPS, the underlying tunnel is encrypted with WireGuard in the same fashion as other Coder workspace connections (e.g. coder port-forward).

If you require secure context web APIs, you will need to mark the workspace hostnames as secure in your browser settings.

We are planning some changes to Coder Desktop that will make accessing secure context web apps easier. Stay tuned for updates.

Troubleshooting

Mac: Issues updating Coder Desktop

No workspaces!

And

Internal Error: The VPN must be started with the app open during first-time setup.

Due to an issue with the way Coder Desktop works with the macOS interprocess communication mechanism(XPC) system network extension, core Desktop functionality can break when you upgrade the application.

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