Using D-I as an ssh client
One of the udebs available for DebianInstaller is openssh-client-udeb which provides functionality for doing ssh-actions to another host. So you can use d-i as an ssh terminal, for example in a class room.
The great trick is doing
anna-install openssh-client-udeb
in VT2 when d-i knows where to fetch the packages that are not in the initrd.
The make it more userfriendly, you can preseed it:
d-i anna/choose_modules multiselect openssh-client-udeb: Secure shell client for the Debian installer
(on a single line in your preseed file )
Users can do
ssh username@host
to connect to the ssh host.
P.S. To my best knowledge the Linux Terminal Server Project does not support text-only SSH clients. --GSt