Capture screenshots of the login screen

Mar 11, '03 10:25:00AM

Contributed by: robg

I'm not sure how practical this is, but if you've ever wanted to take a screenshot of the login screen, here's how. You'll need a second machine on the network in order to do this (Mac or PC, as long as it can run SSH), along with root access. Kirk McElhearn, posted this to the X-Unix mailing list; you can subscribe here.

On the Mac whose screen you wish to capture, make sure Remote Login is enabled on the Sharing system preferences panel. Also note that machine's IP address before you close the panel; assume it's 1.2.3.4 for this example. Then logout.

On the other machine's Terminal application, type ssh -l your_username 1.2.3.4 (replace 'your_username' with your user name on the other machine, and 1.2.3.4 with the actual IP address). Once connected, just type sudo tcsh to create a root shell, and then:

screencapture /path/to/save/picture.pdf
I used the Desktop for my normal user as the path, just to make it easy to find after logging in. Hit return, and the picture is saved. Login to the original Mac again, and double-click the image on the desktop to see a shot of your login screen. When I tested this, I had to add the PDF extension -- without it, Preview refused to open the image.

I'm not sure how useful this is if you're not an author, but there you have it!

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