Want to execute a command from one VT on another VT.

Tony0945

Specifically, I have an autologon display that I want to control remotely using ssh (or putty or even Xming). I want to be able to start/stop Firefox or another browser and change the current page. Is there an application that can do this? Or do I have to write an application that will run on the display's VT and listens on an IP port along with another that will send commands to the listening port? Or is there a better way to accomplish the goal? Someone must have done this in the past.

BillWho · Veteran Joined: 03 Mar 2012 Posts: 1600 Location: US

Tony0945,

Something like app-misc/screen :?:

_________________
Good luck :wink:

Since installing gentoo, my life has become one long emerge

friesia · Apprentice Joined: 23 Mar 2007 Posts: 202

I didn't understand how Firefox is related to VTs, but as I know with screen you can't connect to one screen session from several clients, you have to use tmux for that.

As for launching Firefox remotely, you have to set a correct DISPLAY variable and it will connect to the X session you want.

Mad Merlin · Veteran Joined: 09 May 2005 Posts: 1155

Tony0945 · Posted: Thu Mar 28, 2013 1:15 am Post subject:

I emerged screen and tried it. It didn't seem to do anything more than bash. I tried named pipes and that seemed to work for a while until the pipe stopped responding. One big problem with the pipe is that when I 'exec' the output of the pipe it launches the app but when the app ends the terminal window ends too. I tried wrapping the exec in sh but then I just get the message "exec file or directory not found", so I guess sh loses PATH. I think I have to wrap two applications with sockets in wxGTK but that seems to be a lot of work for what a script should be able to do.