maintainer-needed@gentoo.org nca connects a pseudo terminal to the console's virtual terminals (/dev/tty0...n) that are normally only accessible to someone with local keyboard access. It is particularly useful in conjunction with ncad since it then provides remote console access via SSH; with some appropriate system start up scripts, ncad can be started immediately the root filesystem has been mounted read-only, providing a cheap, and only marginally inferior alternative to a serial console.