DragonFly On-Line Manual Pages

omnitty(1)             DragonFly General Commands Manual            omnitty(1)

NAME
       omnitty - A tool to ssh into several machines simultaneously

SYNOPSIS
       omnitty [-W list_width] [-T term_width]

DESCRIPTION
       Omnitty is a curses-based program that allows one to log into several
       machines simultaneously and interact with them, selectively directing
       input to individual machines or groups of selected machines. You can
       run both line-oriented and screen oriented in the target machines,
       because Omnitty has built-in terminal emulation capability. When the
       terminal is large enough, Omnitty also displays a "summary area" for
       each machine, in which it shows what the latest output from the machine
       was.

OPTIONS
       -W     specifies the width of the list window, if the default is not
              satisfactory. For example, if your machines have exceptionally
              long names, you might have to use this parameter to configure
              the desired width of the list window.

       -T     specifies the width of the terminal window, if the default is
              not satisfactory. For example, if you use omnitty in any X
              terminal with a small font you can increase the with to see
              longer lines without wrapping. The default is to give you an 80
              column terminal and leave the remaining width for the summary
              area.

PROJECT HOME PAGE
       The Omnitty Project's official homepage is the following:

            http://omnitty.sourceforge.net

       There you will find author information, FAQ, links to the latest
       version of the program, etc.

AUTHOR
       This program was written by Bruno T. C. de Oliveira, a computer-science
       student at Universidade de Sao Paulo, Brazil. My e-mail address is:

            btco@linux.ime.usp.br   or   brunotc@gmail.com

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
       When you specify '@foo' as a machine name when adding, the default
       program behavior is to read a file named 'foo' in the current directory
       and add all the machines listed there (one per line). If however you
       set the OMNITTY_AT_COMMAND environment variable, omnitty will, instead
       of trying to open a file named 'foo', execute the command
       OMNITTY_AT_COMMAND supplying it the argument 'foo'. The output of this
       command will be interpreted as a list of machines to add (one per
       line).

MORE DETAILS
       Multiple-host network administration usually involves running the same
       set of commands on several different machines. An administrator might
       ssh into each of the machines in his network individually to perform
       the required tasks, but the process soon becomes repetitive and prone
       to errors. Scripts might help in the case of noninteractive programs
       and when the administrator knows exactly what commands are to be given.
       Error handling in these scripts is also difficult to code, and the
       process becomes especially tedious if these tasks have to be done
       regularly.

       Omnitty tries to present a different approach to manipulating several
       machines remotely. It simultaneously logs you into all the machines you
       specify and then presents a screen in which you navigate through the
       list of machines. When you select a machine, its "terminal" is shown
       onscreen and they keypresses you type are sent to that machine while it
       is selected. The user may freely navigate the list, interacting with
       the machines in any order.

       Another feature is that you can 'tag' machines on the list and enter a
       mode where the input you provide is directed to ALL the machines you
       tagged, simultaneously. Thus you might tag all the machines in which
       you need to run a particular command and then type the command once to
       have all machines execute it.

       Omnitty not only works with regular commands, but also with visual
       programs. For example, you might run 'vi' remotely on several machines
       simultaneously, and every keystroke you supply will be reproduced in
       every machine you tagged. Thus you might interactively edit files in
       several machines at once.

LICENSE INFORMATION
       Copyright (c) 2004 Bruno Takahashi C. de Oliveira. All rights reserved.

       This program is licensed under the GNU General Public License, version
       2 or, at your option, any later version. For full license information,
       please refer to the COPYING file that accompanies the program.

Omnitty SSH multiplexer           August 2004                       omnitty(1)