Ssh – Access local console via SSH

remote-accessshellsshvnc

I am searching for a way to interact with a local console via SSH – just as you would do with an directly connected keyboard.

In my particular case I got a debian server (console only, no X system) which displays several textual values on tty1. There are not input devices attached to this computer, just a single display. The configuration is done over ssh. Commands executed in SSH should show up on tty1.

Is there a way to interact with tty1 in the same manner as a VNC session would do on a X-Window system?

Best Answer

You can read the text currently displayed on the screen from /dev/vcs. If your terminal window has the same number of columns as the actual screen output on the server, then you can simply type cat /dev/vcs and get a recognizable output.

You can append a number to access a specific console rather than always the active console. And you can use vcsa, if you want formatting information as well. So for example you can use /dev/vcsa1 to get the text on the first VC a long with formatting information.

Producing keyboard input is another matter. AFAIR the calls used by gpm only supports cut-n-paste, and doesn't allow arbitrary keystrokes to be input. A few searches on the net suggested it isn't supported out of the box, but it is possible to implement as a driver.

Related Solutions

Linux – VNC via SSH with a single command

The vncviewer can connect on it's own through SSH, so a shorter command would be:

vncviewer -via username@hostname.tld localhost:x

On the above, x is your local display (0, 1...).

Ssh – How to automate SSH login with password

Don't use a password. Generate a passphrase-less SSH key and push it to your VM.

If you already have an SSH key, you can skip this step… Just hit Enter for the key and both passphrases:

$ ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 2048
Generating public/private rsa key pair.
Enter file in which to save the key (/home/username/.ssh/id_rsa):
Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase):
Enter same passphrase again:
Your identification has been saved in /home/username/.ssh/id_rsa.
Your public key has been saved in /home/username/.ssh/id_rsa.pub.

Copy your keys to the target server:

$ ssh-copy-id id@server
id@server's password:

Now try logging into the machine, with ssh 'id@server', and check-in:

.ssh/authorized_keys

Note: If you don't have .ssh dir and authorized_keys file, you need to create it first

to make sure we haven’t added extra keys that you weren’t expecting.

Finally, check to log in…

$ ssh id@server

id@server:~$

You may also want to look into using ssh-agent if you want to try keeping your keys protected with a passphrase.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Linux – VNC via SSH with a single command

Ssh – How to automate SSH login with password

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