1 [[!img notmuch-logo.png alt="Notmuch logo" class="left"]]
2 #Using notmuch remotely#
5 It is hard to keep nomuch tags in sync across multiple instances of
6 notmuch, on multiple computers. Though you can do this with "notmuch
7 dump" and "notmuch restore", it is often preferable to be able to use
8 notmuch on a remote computer as if it were present on a local
11 The following guidelines show how I have accomplished this. It isn't
12 perfect, but it works pretty well, and allows me to access notmuch on
13 my home computer, using only an emacs client on my netbook or work
14 computer, a trivial shell script, a few settings in my .emacs, and a
15 couple of common unix utilities (ssh and dtach).
17 ##What you will need##
18 You will need to have the following items in place:
20 1. a working notmuch on one computer (let's call that computer
23 2. a working notmuch emacs interface on another computer (let's call
24 that computer "client")
26 3. `ssh` and `dtach` on your client computer. (TODO: Make dtach
27 optional, or allow screen or tmux to be used instead.)
29 4. password-free login (public key authentication) from client to
30 server. [Here](http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/152) is a
31 good page on how to set it up.
33 5. a reasonably fast connection. (This isn't really *neccessary*, but
34 if your connection is too slow, this won't be very pleasant to use,
35 and certainly won't seem transparent.)
38 ##Write a wrapper shell script##
40 Now we will need to write a simple shell script that does two things:
42 1. replaces the call to the notmuch binary with a call to notmuch
45 2. sets up a running, detached, ssh connection to the server, so that
46 future calls can reuse the socket.
52 SSH_HOST="example.com"
53 SOCKET_DIR="/tmp/notmuch_$(id -u)"
54 SSH_SOCKET="${SOCKET_DIR}/ssh.socket"
55 NOTMUCH_REMOTE_BIN="notmuch"
56 DTACH="/usr/bin/dtach"
57 DTACH_SOCKET="${SOCKET_DIR}/dtach.socket"
59 check_for_socket_dir ()
61 [ -d "${SOCKET_DIR}" ]
64 check_socket_dir_owner_and_perm ()
66 [ "$(stat -c %U ${SOCKET_DIR})" = "$(whoami)" ] &&
67 [ "$(stat -c %a ${SOCKET_DIR})" = "700" ]
73 chmod 700 "${SOCKET_DIR}"
78 [ -S "${SSH_SOCKET}" ]
83 dtach_command="${DTACH} -n ${DTACH_SOCKET} ${SSH_BIN} -M -S ${SSH_SOCKET} ${USER}@${SSH_HOST}"
84 command -v ${DTACH} &>/dev/null && ${dtach_command}
89 if check_for_socket_dir; then
90 if check_socket_dir_owner_and_perm; then
91 if ! check_for_socket; then
94 else echo "Wrong permissions of ${SOCKET_DIR}" >&2
97 elif create_socket_dir; then
102 printf -v ARGS "%q " "$@"
103 $SSH_BIN -S $SSH_SOCKET $USER@$SSH_HOST $NOTMUCH_REMOTE_BIN ${ARGS}
108 Save this to a file, "remote-notmuch.sh", in your path.
110 Now you can run "remote-notmuch.sh new". You can call the script
111 anything you like. I actually have $HOME/bin/notmuch linked to that
112 script, so I can have transparent
115 ##Configure your emacs client##
117 The only thing you need to do is tell your emacs client to use the
118 script. Add the following to your .emacs (this is on your client
121 (setq notmuch-command "/path/to/your/remote-notmuch.sh")
124 Some things probably won't work perfectly, and there might be some unexpected
125 mismatches between normal usage and this sort of usage. If you're
126 using this approach and run into any problems, please feel free to
127 list them here. And, of course, if you improve on any of these
128 approaches, please do edit this page and let people know!