How To Use Screen Command In Linux: A Beginner’s Guide

How To Use Screen Command In Linux: A Beginner’s Guide

Have you ever been frustrated when your SSH connection drops and your command gets terminated? If so, you need to learn about screen.

Screen is a tool that lets you create multiple sessions on a single terminal. You can detach from a screen session and re-attach to it later, even from a different computer. This way, you can keep your commands running in the background without interruption.

To use screen, you need to install it first. On Ubuntu, you can do this by typing sudo apt install screen in the terminal. Then, you can use screen with these basic operations and more:

• To create a new screen session, type screen in the terminal.
• To create a new screen session with a name, type screen -S name where name is the name you want to give to the session.
• To detach from the current screen session, press Ctrl-A followed by D, or type screen -d.
• To detach other users from a screen session, type screen -D.
• To exit and terminate the current screen session, press Ctrl-A followed by K, or type exit.
• To re-attach to a running screen session, type screen -r if there is only one session, or screen -r name if there are multiple sessions with names.
• To list all the screen sessions, type screen -ls.
• To switch between different screen sessions, press Ctrl-A followed by N for next or P for previous.
• To rename the current screen session, press Ctrl-A followed by A.
• To create a new window within the current screen session, press Ctrl-A followed by C.
• To switch between different windows within the current screen session, press Ctrl-A followed by the window number or " to see a list of windows.
• To see all options of this command, type screen --help

Screen is a powerful tool that can help you manage multiple processes and sessions on a single terminal. Explore its features and options and have fun!

Tips

• By default, the shortcut key to detach from a screen session is CTRL + A followed by D. However, if you want to customize this shortcut key, you can create a file called ./.screenrc with the contents escape ^Bb. Then you run command: screen -S My-Screen -c .screenrc. With this setup, you can now detach from a screen session by pressing CTRL + B followed by D.

CheatSheet

• screen -S <session_name> Start a new session with session name.
• screen -ls List running sessions / screens.
• screen -x Attach to a running session.
• screen -r <session_name> Attach to a running session with name.
• screen -d <session_name> Detach a running session.
• Ctrl-a c Create new window.
• Ctrl-a Ctrl-a Change to last-visited active window.
• Ctrl-a <number> Change to window by number.
• Ctrl-a ' <number or title> Change to window by number or name.
• Ctrl-a n or Ctrl-a <space> Change to next window in list.
• Ctrl-a p or Ctrl-a <backspace> Change to previous window in list.
• Ctrl-a " See window list.
• Ctrl-a w Show window bar.
• Ctrl-a k Kill current window.
• Ctrl-a \ Kill all windows.
• Ctrl-a A Rename current window.
• Ctrl-a S Split display horizontally.
• Ctrl-a | or Ctrl-a V Split display vertically.
• Ctrl-a tab Jump to next display region.
• Ctrl-a X Remove current region.
• Ctrl-a Q Remove all regions but the current one.
• Ctrl-a H Enable logging in the screen session.
• Ctrl-a x Lock (password protect) display.