I was away from my workstation which was running an emacs with several open files (some potentially unsaved!) when I wanted to access some of those files.
My emacs is always configured to run the server process. This means I can start an emacs process and edit any file with `emacsclient $file`. Instead of a new emacs process, the file is opened by my original emacs.
I was curious if I could use emacsclient to connect remotely to a running frame: I can. By ssh’ing in I can run `emacsclient -nw` (no-window) and get a new frame of that emacs client in the terminal which has all my buffers open and ready to go.
Alternatively, if you’re forwarding X connections, using `ssh -X` for instance, `emacsclient -c` will fire up a new emacs frame on your local machine which shares the same emacs process.
More information: http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/EmacsClient