Sharing your system clipboard
27 Aug 2015Today I ran into an issue that had me spinning my wheels for a little too long. I’m making it a habit to write down these moments so a.) maybe someone out there might waste less time than I did and b.) I’m sure I’ll have to come back to this at some point!
Today, I was ssh’d into a remote server and tried to yank something out of vim and into another vim running on my local machine. To clarify:
On the remote(Ubuntu): vim -> yank
On my local(OSX): vim -> paste
I quickly realized that yanking on a remote machine does not mean it will end up on my system(OSX) clipboard. That would be too easy. After some endless googling and bugging people in #vim #tmux and #ubuntu I got no where. That was until I found this post.
There’s some additional set up beyond that post so I hope this to be all encompassing, here we go:
OSX Set up
First you need to be using MacVim on OSX, I wasn’t. MacVim comes with nearly all the extra packages, but the most important one here is +clipboard . You can check if you have that already by running:
$ vim --version
$ mvim --version
VIM - Vi IMproved 7.4 (2013 Aug 10, compiled Aug 27 2015 16:21:48)
MacOS X (unix) version
Included patches: 1-769
Compiled by Homebrew
Huge version with MacVim GUI. Features included (+) or not (-):
+acl +file_in_path +mouse_sgr +tag_binary
+arabic +find_in_path -mouse_sysmouse +tag_old_static
+autocmd +float +mouse_urxvt -tag_any_white
+balloon_eval +folding +mouse_xterm +tcl
+browse -footer +multi_byte +terminfo
++builtin_terms +fork() +multi_lang +termresponse
+byte_offset +fullscreen -mzscheme +textobjects
+cindent -gettext +netbeans_intg +title
+clientserver -hangul_input +odbeditor +toolbar
+clipboard +iconv +path_extra +transparency
+cmdline_compl +insert_expand +perl +user_commands
+cmdline_hist +jumplist +persistent_undo +vertsplit
+cmdline_info +keymap +postscript +virtualedit
+comments +langmap +printer +visual
+conceal +libcall +profile +visualextra
+cryptv +linebreak +python +viminfo
+cscope +lispindent -python3 +vreplace
+cursorbind +listcmds +quickfix +wildignore
+cursorshape +localmap +reltime +wildmenu
+dialog_con_gui -lua +rightleft +windows
+diff +menu +ruby +writebackup
+digraphs +mksession +scrollbind -X11
+dnd +modify_fname +signs -xfontset
-ebcdic +mouse +smartindent +xim
+emacs_tags +mouseshape -sniff -xsmp
+eval +mouse_dec +startuptime -xterm_clipboard
+ex_extra -mouse_gpm +statusline -xterm_save
+extra_search -mouse_jsbterm -sun_workshop -xpm
+farsi +mouse_netterm +syntax
...From here forward, I’ll assume you’re using MacVim. I was a little hesitant at first too but you can run MacVim in a terminal by using:
$ mvim -v FilenameHere’s what I have in my ~/.zshrc for helpers:
export EDITOR=/usr/local/bin/mvim
mac_vim="$EDITOR -v"
alias vi=$mac_vim
alias vim=$mac_vim
alias v=$mac_vimOk, now following garyjohn’s instructions, let’s open up ~/.ssh/config in vim:
$ v ~/.ssh/configLet’s copy in:
ForwardX11 yes
SendEnv WINDOWIDThat’s it for OSX.
Remote (ie Ubuntu, Linux, *Nix, Debian, etc)
You’ll need appropriate permissions, so either run as root or have sudo access.
First a lot of distro’s come with a pre-installed version of VIM, unfortunately like OSX they usually don’t have the write packages installed which is 50% of our issue(s). I recommend the following:
$ sudo apt-get purge vim && sudo apt-get install vim-gtkIf you run vim –version you should see the gtk package ships with most of the extra options for vim, including +clipboard and +xterm_clipboard.
Let’s head into /etc/ssh/sshd_config
$ vim /etc/ssh/sshd_configIn there put:
AcceptEnv WINDOWIDWe’re ready to yank. Let’s try a line in some file
"*yyOpen vim locally and paste, with p. There you have it, we just copy & pasted from a remote ssh session to your local vim.