Xref: utzoo comp.sys.att:2013 comp.unix.wizards:6013
Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!umd5!grebyn!paisano!demasi
From: demasi@paisano.UUCP (Michael C. De Masi)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.att,comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Big fun with unix ports
Keywords: /dev/console /dev/tty?? connect how?
Message-ID: <301@paisano.UUCP>
Date: 7 Jan 88 21:03:51 GMT
Organization: AT&T Communications.  Fairfax, VA
Lines: 39

Hello People,

Well, I guess it's been a while since I started a major
argument on the net, so here goes!

We're running a variety of 3b2/310, 400 & 600 computers
in an area which is already too small to accomodate the one
dedicated console per machine which is necessary for system
messages, etc.  We will probably soon be expanding the area,
but that doesn't help much now.  We do, however, have an
abundance of ports cards on several of the machines.  The
logical solution, it would seem, would be to have the machines
monitor each others' consoles, in some sort of a hierarchical
fashion.  Eg, plug the console from one machine into one of
the regular terminal ports of another machine in much the
same way one does when direct connecting two machines for
uucp transfer.

Of course, in order to do this, the port on the monitoring
machine must be conditioned in a special way, so as to get
it to accept the incoming data from the monitored machine
in an unconditional fashion, without returning to it an
endless series of "Login: Passwd:" prompts.  It would also
be nice to have the monitoring machine redirect the output
from the monitored machine to a file somewhere, so that
important console messages won't simply be lost.

Now, I'm sure that there are some slick packages somewhere
that will do this for us nicely, but I can't help but think
that the same effect must be possible through some fairly
simple combination of stty, init and redirection commands.
Anybody know how?  I've been playing with it for some time
now, but I just can't seem hit the right combination.

Thanks in advance for any help,

Michael C. De Masi - AT&T Communications (For whom I work and not speak)
UUCP:   decuac!grebyn!paisano!demasi
     "Cigarette?"  "Yes, I know" - Detective Frank Drebyn & Suspect