getting a DISPLAY from another client

Hi guys,
I am new, but my question seems a little difficult so maybe you can help me. I am wondering if it is possible to get the DISPLAY from another client to trouble shoot problems they are having. My friend is a Linux admin. and he said to just export their display and I have tried that but it doesn't do exactly what I want. I want to be able to see what is on their screen and fix their problems from my desk. I am a Unix Admin but am new to the game so any help would be appreciated. At work, we use with SCO Open Server. I was looking into VNC, but I haven't been able to find it for SCO. Does anyone know any other way to get what I am looking for or any other programs that would do it for me. In Windows, the Gateway technicians do it all the time from their remote locations but how can it be done in Unix?

Thanks guys.

tty snoop? have no clue except that just came to mind while i was reading your post.

I am not familiar with that but I will look into it.

Thanks for the suggestion.
Shaun Ladd

OK guys,
tty-snoop doesn't work with SCO. Does anyone have any other advice or ideas? In SCO the watch command doesn't even work. What a dead OS... Does anyone know?

Thanks,
Shaun23

i dont know how to do what im going to try to describe but im sure someone else does, from the users computer that you wish to get the display from, you would just send the out put to your terminal. like if what you want to see is the screen, not in real time but i think you can just dump it to your terminal, i dont know how it would be done but do it like
$> cat file_to_be_sent_to_yourscreen > tty1
(or is it the <)
also could you actually do a cat of the, say its tty2 that you wnat to see? like:
$> cat /dev/tty2 > (or <) /dev/tty1

im posting this hopeing that someone with more knowledge about this will explain what im talking about a little better, haha or say if that wont work completly, but hope this helps.

that is a good option i looked into but I need to be able to control and run GUI processes from my location. If I were running Linux or Solaris I would have this problem solved by now but SCO just doesn't have a lot of options to deal with.

Thanks anyways

on pc's there is a program called pcanyware i think, i dont know if there are any ports to unix or any equivalent programs, but try a search maybe theres something.

someone earlier mentioned tty-snoop which sounds like a good method but it is not supported by SCO. If I were in Solaris or Linux it would work great but not for SCO. I also found this program called VNC. But also it is not supported by SCO. Thanks anyways...

before the user start is application he must do (at bash )
> export DISPLAY=your_ip_address:0.0
> run_the_gui.sh

try that

what is
run_the_gui.sh
? cause I don't have it on my machine. Or was that just a joke to see if I was gullable?

Shaun

lol
no it is not a joke. and its normal you dont have it on your machine

> export DISPLAY=your_ip_address:0.0

change your\_ip_address with your ip address

> run_the_gui.sh

change run\_the_gui.sh  with the command-line to start your GUI application....

btw, it is not to be done on your machine...
it is to be done on the user's machine where the application is

oh sorry. I feel like an a$$ now. I thought that was actually a script somewhere. I can export the display as you put it and that works fine, but what I want to do it to be able when I get a call (or email) to login directly to his machine and get his desktop as my own. That way I can run the programs on his local machine but from my station. You understand what I mean?

Thanks

ohhh then you need to start up the x server! depending if you are using kdm or gnome it depends on how to do it. but its easy, just go to linux.com or the linuxdoc.org (ithinkthats it) search the how to pages for x server. you can remotley login like that. that what you mean right? hes using a gui? if so then thats how to do it.

ok, if his machine is windows, then you need pc anywhere or something like that

if his machine is sco then he has to open the telnet or ssh service.

norsk is right, X server has to run somewhere...

Is the user using a Unix workstation or Windows workstation?
If later, use netmeeting or anyother remote control software to acheive what you need.

no he is using SCO, the easiest and best way to do what it hink he wants to do is the the x server. i would have suggested it earlier, but i thought he just wanted to see what the user was seeing as the user was running a program, what i think now you mean is that you just want to remotley login to his desktop, when i hear desktop i think gui, so then you want to remotley login to the xserver, which can be done fairley simply.