NAME

nca - Network Console on Acid - /sbin/nca

SYNOPSIS

nca

DESCRIPTION

nca connects a pseudo terminal to the console's virtual terminals (/dev/tty0...n) that are normally only accessible to someone with local keyboard access. It can only be run by the super user (more strictly, by a user that can read and write from /dev/vcs and /dev/tty*).

It is particularly useful in conjunction with ncad(8) since it then provides remote console access; with some appropriate system start up scripts, ncad can be started immediately the root filesystem has been mounted read-only, providing a cheap, and only marginally inferior alternative to a serial console.

USAGE

When run as the super user, nca will connect your virtual terminal to /dev/tty1. Keypresses are sent to the terminal, and all changes to the screen are sent back to your terminal.

All additional functions are accessed by pressing CTRL-a ('C-a' hereafter) followed by one of the following:

1-9

-/+

select the previous or next virtual terminal

hard-reboot (after prompting for confirmation). Note that this is direct call of the reboot system call, so disks will not be synced or unmounted.

spawn a shell. This can be executed at any time (and is therefore particularly useful if something has broken during boot-up before any gettys have been spawned).

quit nca

C-a can be sent to the terminal by pressing it twice.

BUGS

nca can only switch between the first 9 virtual terminals.

To describe the error handling as crude would be to be very harsh on those programs that actually possess crude error handling. Errors are not so much handled as reported and ignored.

C-a +/- don't wrap around.

AUTHORS

Written by James McKenzie. Packaged by Julian Midgley.