Real-Time Terminal Sharing with Tee

Sometimes you may want to share what you’re doing in the terminal with others in real-time. While tools like tmux or screen are powerful, there is a simpler way to broadcast your session to a file that others can watch.

The Broadcast Command

The -f flag tells tail to “follow” the file, meaning it will update the To start sharing, switch to the shell you want to display and use the following command structure:

shell_name -i |& tee /tmp/show

How it works:

• -i: Runs the shell in interactive mode.
• |&: This is a Bash shortcut that pipes both stdout (standard output) and stderr (errors) to the next command.
• tee: Reads from the pipe and writes to both the screen and a file simultaneously.

How Others Can Watch

Once you’ve started the broadcast, anyone else on the same system (or with access to your /tmp directory) can view your terminal activities by typing:

$ tail -f /tmp/show

The -f flag tells tail to “follow” the file, meaning it will update the