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 São 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

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.