Getting Items on the Local Clipboard from a Remote SSH Session

Question

Borderline ServerFault question, but I'm programming some shell scripts, so I'm trying here first :)

Most *nixes have a command that will let you pipe/redirect output to the local clipboard/pasteboard, and retrieve from same. On OS X these commands are

pbcopy, pbpaste

Is there anyway to replicate this functionality while SSHed into another server? That is,

1. I'm using Computer A.
2. I open a terminal window
3. I SSH to Computer B
4. I run a command on Computer B
5. The output of Computer B is redirected or automatically copies to Computer A's clipboard.

And yes, I know I could just (shudder) use my mouse to select the text from the command, but I've gotten so used to the workflow of pipping output directly to the clipboard that I want the same for my remote sessions.

Code is useful, but general approaches are appreciated as well.

Answer 1

If Tooltalk is available for both systems you could write a simple Tooltalk application to do what you want to do.

Answer 2

There are various tools to access X11 selections, including xclip and XSel. Note that X11 traditionally has multiple selections, and most programs have some understanding of both the clipboard and primary selection (which are not the same). Emacs can work with the secondary selection too, but that's rare, and nobody really knows what to do with cut buffers...

$ xclip -help
Usage: xclip [OPTION] [FILE]...
Access an X server selection for reading or writing.

  -i, -in          read text into X selection from standard input or files
                   (default)
  -o, -out         prints the selection to standard out (generally for
                   piping to a file or program)
  -l, -loops       number of selection requests to wait for before exiting
  -d, -display     X display to connect to (eg localhost:0")
  -h, -help        usage information
      -selection   selection to access ("primary", "secondary", "clipboard" or "buffer-cut")
      -noutf8      don't treat text as utf-8, use old unicode
      -version     version information
      -silent      errors only, run in background (default)
      -quiet       run in foreground, show what's happening
      -verbose     running commentary

Report bugs to <[email protected]>

$ xsel -help
Usage: xsel [options]
Manipulate the X selection.

By default the current selection is output and not modified if both
standard input and standard output are terminals (ttys).  Otherwise,
the current selection is output if standard output is not a terminal
(tty), and the selection is set from standard input if standard input
is not a terminal (tty). If any input or output options are given then
the program behaves only in the requested mode.

If both input and output is required then the previous selection is
output before being replaced by the contents of standard input.

Input options
  -a, --append          Append standard input to the selection
  -f, --follow          Append to selection as standard input grows
  -i, --input           Read standard input into the selection

Output options
  -o, --output          Write the selection to standard output

Action options
  -c, --clear           Clear the selection
  -d, --delete          Request that the selection be cleared and that
                        the application owning it delete its contents

Selection options
  -p, --primary         Operate on the PRIMARY selection (default)
  -s, --secondary       Operate on the SECONDARY selection
  -b, --clipboard       Operate on the CLIPBOARD selection

  -k, --keep            Do not modify the selections, but make the PRIMARY
                        and SECONDARY selections persist even after the
                        programs they were selected in exit.
  -x, --exchange        Exchange the PRIMARY and SECONDARY selections

X options
  --display displayname
                        Specify the connection to the X server
  -t ms, --selectionTimeout ms
                        Specify the timeout in milliseconds within which the
                        selection must be retrieved. A value of 0 (zero)
                        specifies no timeout (default)

Miscellaneous options
  -l, --logfile         Specify file to log errors to when detached.
  -n, --nodetach        Do not detach from the controlling terminal. Without
                        this option, xsel will fork to become a background
                        process in input, exchange and keep modes.

  -h, --help            Display this help and exit
  -v, --verbose         Print informative messages
  --version             Output version information and exit

Please report bugs to <[email protected]>.

In short, you should try xclip -i/xclip -o or xclip -i -sel clip/xclip -o -sel clip or xsel -i/xsel -o or xsel -i -b/xsel -o -b, depending on what you want.