NAME

       conspy - virtual console spy tool

SYNOPSIS

       conspy [ options ] [ console ]

DESCRIPTION

       Conspy  allows the user to take control of a Linux virtual console.  The user can see what
       is displayed on the console and their keystrokes are sent to it.

       To exit from conspy press the escape key three times in quick succession.

COMMAND LINE

       -g COLSxROWS, --geometry COLSxROWS
              Specify the console size.  Conspy can almost always correctly  guess  the  size  so
              this is only useful when it complains it can't.

       -V, --version
              Print the program's version and exit.

       -v, --viewonly
              Don't send keystrokes to the virtual console.

       console
              If  supplied,  console  must be a number in the range 1 .. 63, corresponding to the
              virtual console device /dev/tty1 .. /dev/tty63.   If  not  supplied  the  currently
              active virtual console is opened and tracked.

LIMITATIONS

       Conspy  will not pass keystrokes to a virtual console whose keyboard is configured to send
       scan codes.  X configures its keyboard like this.  If the terminal does not have at  least
       64  colours  no  colour  will be displayed.  Conspy ignores the mouse.  Conspy may display
       some non-ASCII characters incorrectly.

       The kernel reports the console geometry and cursor position using bytes which limits  both
       to  255  maximum.   Conspy  can  usually guess the correct display size from the truncated
       version, but if the cursor position is beyond line 255 or column 255 conspy will put it in
       the wrong place.

       Conspy  depends  on terminfo and curses working correctly for your terminal, and sometimes
       they don't.  Konsole is/was one example of where they don't.  Typing control-L will redraw
       the  screen,  which  usually  fixes  the  mess  created.  It also sends a control-L to the
       virtual console, of course.

FILES

       /dev/ttyX, /dev/vc/X
              The characters typed are sent to this device.  The latter is for devfs. It is  only
              used if the former does not exist.

       /dev/vcsaX, /dev/vcc/aX
              The  display of the virtual console is read from here.  The latter is for devfs. It
              is only used if the former does not exist.

AUTHOR

       Russell Stuart, <russell-conspy@stuart.id.au>.