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.TH KIBITZ 1 "19 October 1994"

.SH NAME

kibitz \- allow two people to interact with one shell

.SH SYNOPSIS

.B kibitz

[

.I kibitz-args

]

.I user

[

.I program program-args...

]

.br

.B kibitz

[

.I kibitz-args

]

.I user@host

[

.I program program-args...

]

.SH INTRODUCTION

.B kibitz

allows two (or more) people to interact with one shell (or any arbitrary

program).  Uses include:

.RS

.TP 4

\(bu

A novice user can ask an expert user for help.  Using

.BR kibitz ,

the expert can see what the user is doing, and offer advice or

show how to do it right.

.TP

\(bu

By running

.B kibitz

and then starting a full-screen editor, people may carry out a

conversation, retaining the ability to scroll backwards,

save the entire conversation, or even edit it while in progress.

.TP

\(bu

People can team up on games, document editing, or other cooperative

tasks where each person has strengths and weaknesses that complement one

another.

.SH USAGE

To start

.BR kibitz ,

user1

runs kibitz with the argument of the

user to kibitz.  For example:

        kibitz user2

.B kibitz

starts a new shell (or another program, if given on the command

line), while prompting user2 to run

.BR kibitz .

If user2 runs

.B kibitz

as directed, the keystrokes of both users become the input of

the shell.  Similarly, both users receive the output from the

shell.

To terminate

.B kibitz

it suffices to terminate the shell itself.  For example, if either user

types ^D (and the shell accepts this to be EOF), the shell terminates

followed by

.BR kibitz .

Normally, all characters are passed uninterpreted.  However, if the

escape character (described when

.B kibitz

starts) is issued, the user

may talk directly to the

.B kibitz

interpreter.  Any

.BR Expect (1)

or

.BR Tcl (3)

commands may be given.

Also, job control may be used while in the interpreter, to, for example,

suspend or restart

.BR kibitz .

Various processes

can provide various effects.  For example, you can emulate a two-way write(1)

session with the command:

        kibitz user2 sleep 1000000

.SH ARGUMENTS

.B kibitz

takes arguments, these should also be separated by whitespace.

The

.B \-noproc

flag runs

.B kibitz

with no process underneath.  Characters are passed to the other

.BR kibitz .

This is particularly useful for connecting multiple

interactive processes together.

In this mode, characters are not echoed back to the typist.

.B \-noescape

disables the escape character.

.BI \-escape " char"

sets the escape character.  The default escape character is ^].

.B \-silent

turns off informational messages describing what kibitz is doing to

initiate a connection.

.BI \-tty " ttyname"

defines the tty to which the invitation should be sent.

If you start

.B kibitz

to user2 on a remote computer,

.B kibitz

performs a

.B rlogin

to the remote computer with your current username. The flag

.BI \-proxy " username"

causes

.B rlogin

to use

.I username

for the remote login (e.g. if your account on the remote computer has a

different username). If the

.B -proxy

flag is not given,

.B kibitz

tries to determine your current username by (in that order) inspecting the

environment variables USER and LOGNAME, then by using the commands

.B whoami

and

.BR logname .

The arguments

.B -noescape

and

.B -escape

can also be given by user2 when prompted to run

.BR kibitz .

.SH MORE THAN TWO USERS

The current implementation of kibitz explicitly understands only two users,

however, it is nonetheless possible to have a three (or more) -way kibitz,

by kibitzing another

.BR kibitz .

For example, the following command runs

.B kibitz

with the current user, user2, and user3:

        % kibitz user2 kibitz user3

Additional users may be added by simply appending more "kibitz user"

commands.

The

.B xkibitz

script is similar to

.B kibitz

but supports the ability to add additional users (and drop them)

dynamically.

.SH CAVEATS

.B kibitz

assumes the 2nd user has the same terminal type and size as the 1st user.

If this assumption is incorrect, graphical programs may display oddly.

.B kibitz

handles character graphics, but cannot handle bitmapped graphics.  Thus,

.nf

        % xterm -e kibitz    will work

        % kibitz xterm       will not work

.fi

However, you can get the effect of the latter command by using

.B xkibitz

(see SEE ALSO below).

.B kibitz

uses the same permissions as used by rlogin, rsh, etc.  Thus, you

can only

.B kibitz

to users at hosts for which you can rlogin.

Similarly,

.B kibitz

will prompt for a password on the remote host if

rlogin would.

If you

.B kibitz

to users at remote hosts,

.B kibitz

needs to distinguish your prompt from other things that may precede it

during login.

(Ideally, the end of it is preferred but any part should suffice.)

If you have an unusual prompt,

set the environment variable EXPECT_PROMPT to an egrep(1)-style

regular expression.

Brackets should be preceded with one backslash in ranges,

and three backslashes for literal brackets.

The default prompt r.e. is "($|%|#)\ ".

.B kibitz

requires the

.B kibitz

program on both hosts.

.B kibitz

requires

.BR expect (1).

By comparison, the

.B xkibitz

script uses the X authorization mechanism for inter-host communication

so it does not need to login, recognize your prompt, or require kibitz

on the remote host.  It does however need permission to access

the other X servers.

.SH BUGS

An early version of Sun's tmpfs had a bug in it that causes

.B kibitz

to blow up.  If

.B kibitz

reports "error flushing ...: Is a directory"

ask Sun for patch #100174.

If your Expect is not compiled with multiple-process support (i.e., you do not

have a working select or poll), you will not be able to run kibitz.

.SH ENVIRONMENT

The environment variable SHELL is used to determine the shell to start, if no

other program is given on the command line.

If the environment variable EXPECT_PROMPT exists, it is taken as a regular

expression which matches the end of your login prompt (but does not otherwise

occur while logging in). See also CAVEATS above.

If the environment variables USER or LOGNAME are defined, they are used to

determine the current user name for a

.B kibitz

to a remote computer. See description of the

.B -proxy

option in ARGUMENTS above.

.SH SEE ALSO

.BR Tcl (3),

.BR libexpect (3),

.BR xkibitz (1)

.br

.I

"Exploring Expect: A Tcl-Based Toolkit for Automating Interactive Programs"

\fRby Don Libes,

O'Reilly and Associates, January 1995.

.br

.I

"Kibitz \- Connecting Multiple Interactive Programs Together", \fRby Don Libes,

Software \- Practice & Experience, John Wiley & Sons, West Sussex, England,

Vol. 23, No. 5, May, 1993.

.SH AUTHOR

Don Libes, National Institute of Standards and Technology

.B kibitz

is in the public domain.

NIST and I would

appreciate credit if this program or parts of it are used.