NAME

       detachtty, attachtty - run an interactive program with io to a unix-domain socket

SYNOPSIS

       detachtty  [--no-detach]  [--dribble-file  dribblename]  [--log-file  name] [--pid-file  pidname] socket-
       path command [arguments-to-command]...
       attachtty socket-path [command] [timeout]
       attachtty username@host:socket-path [command]

DESCRIPTION

       detachtty lets you run interactive programs non-interactively, and connect to them (optionally  over  the
       network) when you do need to interact with them.  command is run on a pseudo-terminal, and data is copied
       between  it  and  a  unix(7)-domain  socket  named  socket-path.   command  runs  with the current user's
       permissions and environment variables.

       attachtty is used to connect to a process running under detachtty.  It  copies  between  socket-path  and
       stdin/out.   It  also  catches SIGINT and arranges for it to be forwarded to the command, so the user may
       use Control-C in the usual fashion.

       If you've used screen, it's a similar concept.  Compared to screen, detachtty has

        * no capability to swap between different screens (it doesn't co-opt C-a)

        * no tty emulation (you can sanely use it in emacs comint modes)

        * no features (less to go wrong)

        * no configuration file

        * ability to spawn ssh to securely connect across the network

OPTIONS

       These programs approximately follow the usual GNU command line syntax, using long options that start with
       two dashes (`--').

       For detachtty, the options are:

       --no-detach
              Don't fork into the background.  Useful if you wish to start the program from inittab(5).

       --dribble-file  dribblename
              All input from and to the program being run is copied into  dribblename  (if  unspecified,  it  is
              discarded).

       --log-file  name
              Status  messages  (client connects, disconnects, errors) are sent to name (if unspecified, they go
              to standard error).

       --pid-file  pidname
              The process ID of detachtty is written to pidname.  See SIGNALS.

       socket-path
              The unix-domain socket.  If access to command should be in any  way  restricted,  so  should  this
              socket - i.e. it is recommended that you put it in a mode 700 directory.

       command arguments
              The  command  to  run  (which  is  searched  for  in  the normal way).  All remaining command line
              parameters are passed to it as arguments.

       For attachtty, the options are instead:

       socket-path
              This is either the path to socket-path, or a "remote path" of the  form  username@host:socket-path
              where  username@host  is  passed  to  ssh.  The  latter  form  is  currently  an  alias for ssh -t
              username@host attachtty socket-path [text] and lets ssh manage the authentication, i.e. whether to
              ask for a password or not.

       text   The text to write into the socket. It will be processed by the command  executed  from  detachtty.
              For  local  sockets,  the  same  effect  can  be obtained with (echo -e text´\r´; sleep timeout) |
              attachtty socket-path

       timeout
              The maximum timeout in seconds (defaults to 1) to wait for the written text to be processed.  This
              is available only for local connections.

       To detach from the tty without exiting from the server process, send attachtty any signal that it doesn't
       catch.  See the SIGNALS section.

NOTES

       detachtty  does  not  search  the  user's PATH environment variable for the program to execute, so a full
       pathname must be provided.

       If you get an immediate "Child terminated, exiting" message from detachtty, this usually means  that  the
       program you specified was not found or could not be executed (on Linux 2.4, execve(1) succeeds even if it
       didn't, so to speak).

       You will probably go insane a lot more slowly if you use absolute pathnames for all filename arguments.

SIGNALS

       Sending  SIGHUP  to  the  process  identified by pidname will cause detachtty to close and reopen its log
       files.

       Sending SIGTSTP to an attachtty process (usually from the keyboard with ^Z) will cause it to stop  itelf,
       leaving the server process running.  It can be resumed normally with the shell builtin command "fg".

       Sending  SIGQUIT to an attachtty process (usually from the keyboard with ^\) will cause it to detach from
       the tty and quit, leaving the server process running.  Sometimes you need to press it twice.

SEE ALSO

       screen(1), ssh(1), sbcl(1).

AUTHOR

       Written by Daniel Barlow <dan@telent.net>, and a cast of units.  Modified by Luca Capello  <luca@pca.it>.
       Modified    by    Mark    Huetsch    <markhuetsch@gmail.com>.     Modified   by   Massimiliano   Ghilardi
       <massimiliano.ghilardi@gmail.com>.

                                                  Mar 18, 2006                                      DETACHTTY(1)