Posted by mikhailian on Wed 9 Jan 2008 at 09:04
It is often a waste of time for the person on the other end of the phone to listen to the support guy without really seeing what goes on. Using GNU screen two people can watch what is happening, and we'll show how here
One way to get the user involved is to let him follow on screen what you do.
So, log in and start screen on the command line. Then, enter ^A:multiuser on[RET]. That is, type Ctrl-a to enter the command mode, then type : to enter the screen's build-in command line. You can now activate the multiuser mode by entering multiuser on in the screen's command line that appears in reverse color at the bottom of the console window. To execute, hit Return.
The other guy just has to log in with the same user, type screen -x to connect to your screen session running in multiuser mode and follow what you do.
This article can be found online at the Debian Administration website at the following bookmarkable URL (along with associated comments):
This article is copyright 2008 mikhailian - please ask for permission to republish or translate.