SCREENDUMP(1)

📦
version 2.10.0 · 2 versions
, in arch rolling, debian trixie, nixos 26.05, nixpkgs unstable, opensuse-leap 16.0, ubuntu questing, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

✨ SCREENDUMP(1) — General Commands Manual ✨

💖 NAME

okay so screendump is the command that dumps the contents of a virtual console straight to stdout 🖥️✨

🎀 SYNOPSIS

screendump [options] [N]

💅 DESCRIPTION

okay bestie, the screendump command dumps the contents of virtual console N (or the console you're currently on, if you leave N out) to standard out 🌸 it's giving very "copy the screen into my terminal" energy 😭

ngl, this is not the only way to do it! just saying, cat /dev/vcsN has a similar effect 🦋

🦋 OPTIONS

  • -V, --version — shows you the version number 🔢
  • -h, --help — pulls up the usage message 📖

🔒 NOTES

okay this part is lowkey important so pay attention 👀 for security reasons, screendump uses the linux devices "virtual console screen" and "virtual console screen with attributes" to give access for screendump. no cap, that's the whole deal 🔐

you need to make sure these files exist first 🛠️ you can do that by running:

cd /dev
for i in 0 1 2 3 ...; do
     mknod vcs$i c 7 $i
     mknod vcsa$i c 7 `expr 128 + $i`
done

(just fill in the ellipses yourself, periodt 💀) then give the device files appropriate permissions 🗝️, or run screendump as root 👑

💜 AUTHORS

Andries Brouwer <aeb@cwi.nl> is the original author 🫶 the manpage was written by Alastair McKinstry <mckinstry@computer.org> 💕

🌈 SEE ALSO

kbd 🍓 released 2002-02-24, and this page is from SCREENDUMP(1) 🧚 stay iconic, bestie 💅🎀

📦 where this page comes from