Remote

VS Code Remote Development

LaTeX Workshop can work with VS Code Remote Development extensions. You can read their technical details. Not only you can edit a TeX file inside a Docker container or in WSL, but also you can preview the pdf file.

Security risk of VS Codo Remote - SSH

You can also edit a TeX file on a remote server and preview the pdf file. However, when you use this feature on a remote server, please consider the following security risks.

VS Code Remote Development extensions are NOT supposed to be used on a usual server logged in by multiple users.

VS Code Remote Sever can be accessed by other users on the remote server

VS Code Remote Development extensions start a server to host VS Code extensions on the remote server. Other users on the remote server can access the server.

• https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/remote/troubleshooting#_improving-security-on-multiuser-servers
• https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-remote-release/issues/1927#issuecomment-942462191

Your PDF file can be read by other users on the remote server

LaTeX Workshop starts a http server to preview the pdf file on the remote server. Other users on the remote server can access the server and can read your PDF file.

Security model of VS Code Remote Development

You MUST NOT build an untrusted LaTeX document with VS Code Remote Development. It is NOT SAFE.

See the comment: https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-remote-release/issues/6608#issuecomment-1112960548

you should only connect to VS Code servers that you trust. So you should only connect to SSH machines that you trust and only create dev containers from definitions that you trust (i.e. you should not use dev containers as a sandbox).