socktty - a portable screen for shell programs

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This program is used to bind line orientated shell applications like the bash or ircII to an unix domain socket. So the program works like on a persistent connection, but for real, some intermittent viewer can connect from time to time. The viewer gets a screenshot and may even hold the line a while and reconnect after a variable interval.

This is useful for screening the results of a shell application to some things like a http-cgi-formular thing or a WAPplicaion. Examples are given.

The main process is socktty. You start programs on the commandline of socktty and give the some sort of key, an sockid.

Look into this example:

socktty -b 8192 -s irc -- /usr/bin/irc -d

You may now connect to this irc-process with one of the example clients:

httpirc   - a http-cgi with persitent connection, and automatic reconnect
localterm - a line-orientated client running in an xterm, for debugging 
            and test purpose
wapirc    - a WAPplication with special features to work with the ircII from
            a mobile-wml-device.

You may also run:

socktty -s tty -- /bin/bash -i

wapbash   - a WAPplication with special features to work with a bash

Sorry, there is no automagic installing, no fancy output and no usable out of the box thing. Lets face it, this is a bunch of crap, but it works for me.

useful links

• commercial wapirc
• another wap project focusing on irc
• o2 active search@google