# viewing session on remote server

## twobit

cant seem to find the info i'm looking for.  i have a remote gentoo server and i want to take control of the session that is currently displayed on the server locally.   how do i do this? do i need to start the program i'm trying to control remotely in the background?  

someone link or explain how this is done?

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## NeddySeagoon

twobit,

There are several ways.  If the server has a GUI and the program is already running, you need to set up VNC in its screenscraper mode, so it can show you the remote GUI.

SECURITY  WARNING: VNC is not secure. Tunnel it over ssh or something like that.

If you don't have a GUI, install screen on the server and run the program in screen.

You can now connect remotely and pick up the screen session.  The program will not exit when you disconnect from screen.

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## twobit

i was meaning in a console session .. over ssh...  there is no Gui installed

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## Jaglover

app-misc/screen

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## BillWho

twobit,

If you start screen session (app-misc/screen) on the server you can attach to it from an ssh session   :Wink: 

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## eccerr0r

If you're in text mode right now there's not really many options that I know of... Is it in a framebuffer mode or raw text mode?

Technically there are ioctls that you can use to send characters into the console stdin but no real clean program to do this... hmm... might be a project to do this for fun...

If you're in X11, there's options available... specifically x11vnc.

If this is a virtual machine, then there also could be options there too...

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## twobit

thanks for the help all!  screen seems to be doing the job

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