Linux Terminal: how to capture or watch other terminal session

Question

Let say, I access to a server using ssh. In the same time, there is another person accessing that server.

Is it possible to watch what is going on in that person\'s

Answer 1

You can use the small tool script for logging the terminal into a file. The observing party can simply tail -f that file to follow.

This is a much simpler approach, but it works very nicely for most cases

Answer 2

If the other person is using the Linux console, you can use conspy.

Answer 3

Well depending on whether its for 'live' or 'ondemand' purposes, you could replay it online with a service like www.playterm.org.

Answer 4

If you want to share a session on a machine behind a firewall or NAT, you can use the open-source terminal sharing program Termbeamer.

Answer 5

Something nice and easy:

watch -n 1 cat /dev/vcsa1

watch -n 1 refers for the time to refresh.

Answer 6

I also use an approach similar to what Maze said. This is a unidirectional sharing with read-only for the guest. This is how it works:

1) The host starts the script command writing somewhere where the guest has read access and set the permits as required, for example:

$ script -f /tmp/shared_screen
Script was started....
$ chmod 640 /tmp/shared_screen
$ chgrp shared_group /tmp/shared_screen

The -f flushes the contents permanently so you'll have a very low delay

2) The guest starts dumping the content of the file:

$ tail -f /tmp/shared_screen

In this case -f causes tail to wait on more output from the file. Use ctrl-C to stop displaying the file contents.