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GNU Screen

GNU Screen Featured

Screen is a full-screen window manager that multiplexes a physical terminal between several processes, typically interactive shells.

TL;DR - Screen keeps your ssh sessions alive on a host.

Installation

Most servers have screen installed already. If they don't it can be installed via apt-get install screen, yum install screen, brew install screen. Sorry Windows, try Remote Desktop.

Startup

Get a terminal on a remote host (or local) then run screen

screen

If you're not brave, try man screen to read more about.

Once screen has started, you'll want to remember <C-a>?. That is how you get the screen options menu. It's typed literal hold CTRL and press a. To quit the screen app, type exit. To keep screen running, type <C-a>d to detach from the program. To reattach to that session try screen -x.

Options

There are tons of options and they're best found by reading the man page or Googling gnu screen shortcuts. Here's some of my favorites.

Startup Flags

  • screen -DDR. Force others of the current session and reattach yourself.
  • screen -x. Reattach yourself, but allow others to stay in. This is cooperative mode. Good for pairing and much faster than GUI screen sharing.

Control Keys

  • <C-a><C-c>. Create a "tab" to have multiple sessions.
  • <C-a><C-a>. Toggle to previous session.
  • <C-a><Space>. Switch next session.
  • <C-a>a. Send a literal <C-a> back to shell.

Config File and Pretty Colors

It's easy to get lost in screen without a status line. So creating this file in your home directory will help.

~/.screenrc 

hardstatus alwayslastline
hardstatus string '%{= kG}[ %{G}%H %{g}][%= %{= kw}%?%-Lw%?%{r}(%{W}%n*%f%t%?(%u)%?%{r})%{w}%?%+Lw%?%?%= %{g}][%{B} %m-%d %{W}%c %{g}]'

This should give you a pretty statusline at the bottom of your terminal. Here's what it looks like: GNU Screen Statusline

TMUX

A strong competitor to screen is tmux. It has a more modern code base and is actively maintained. The reason I personally don't use it is out of habit and it's not installed everywhere. screen just works for my work flow.

References

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