xenial (1) conspy.1.gz

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>.