Overview
Screen or GNU Screen is a terminal multiplexer. In other words, it means that you can start a screen session and then open any number of windows (virtual terminals) inside that session. Processes running in Screen will continue to run when their window is not visible even if you get disconnected.
Basic Usage
- On the command prompt, type screen.
- Run the desired program.
- Use the key sequence Ctrl-a + Ctrl-d to detach from the screen session.
- Reattach to the screen session by typing screen -r.
- Once finished with the session exit as per usual.
To find the session ID list the current running screen sessions with:
screen -ls
A list of sessions are provided:
There are screens on: 10835.pts-0.linuxize-desktop (Detached) 10366.pts-0.linuxize-desktop (Detached) 2 Sockets in /run/screens/S-linuxize.
If you want to restore screen 10835.pts-0, then type the following command:
screen -r 10835
Options
Named sessions are useful when you run multiple screen sessions. To create a named session, run the screen command with the following arguments:
screen -S session_name
Below are some most common commands for managing Linux Screen Windows:
Ctrl+a c Create a new window (with shell).
Ctrl+a " List all windows.
Ctrl+a 0 Switch to window 0 (by number).
Ctrl+a A Rename the current window.
Ctrl+a S Split current region horizontally into two regions.
Ctrl+a | Split current region vertically into two regions.
Ctrl+a tab Switch the input focus to the next region.
Ctrl+a Ctrl+a Toggle between the current and previous windows
Ctrl+a Q Close all regions but the current one.
Ctrl+a X Close the current region.