"You are logged into your remote server via SSH and happily plucking along at your keyboard and then it happens. Suddenly, the characters stop moving and then you get the dreaded 'Connection Closed' message. You have just lost your session. You were halfway through some task and now you have to start over. Ugh. Well you can prevent this from happening by using screen. The Linux screen tool can not only save you from disconnection disasters, but it also can increase your productivity by using multiple windows within one SSH session. I use this tool all of the time in our server management work." An older tutorial, and even though I have little to no knowledge about screen, I know one thing: lots of people swear by it.
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2005-11-10
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tmux really is better... I've used it extensively to keep the sessions on my sparcstation open even if the ssh connection craps out.
It would be nice if it were a bit more integrated into ssh so that it could resume connections automatic ie when on a cellular or intermittent wifi connection.
The keyboard usage on tmux seems a bit more polished to me I suppose thats the main thing.
Edited 2012-08-31 01:03 UTC
Member since:2005-07-06
I do this with screen, but I'm sure the same thing would probably work with tmux. Here's how, http://taint.org/wk/RemoteLoginAutoScreen
edit:
Someone already seems to have modified the above to work with tmux, http://william.shallum.net/random-notes/automatically-start-tmux-on...
Edited 2012-08-31 02:11 UTC
Member since:2011-08-13
http://mosh.mit.edu/
That might be exactly what you're looking for.
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2005-08-18
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2012-03-29
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Yes!
From http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=tmux&sektion=1
, Rename the current window.
Member since:2005-08-18
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2006-01-11
Yes, RMS has tired everyone out by arguing that people could say GNU/Linux, but come on. It's not the Linux screen tool.
It is GNU Screen, originally done on the BSD platform and integrated with the GNU project in 1990, before Linus released his first kernel. People have been using it for more than two decades on all kinds of Unix flavors, as well as on Windows and OSX.
Linux is great, but it's just a kernel, and that kernel was designed originally to run all the cool GNU and BSD code that already existed.
RE: This is the kind of thing that pisses RMS off
Member since:2005-07-09
Member since:2008-10-28
Pardon me for the intrusion, but from were I stand it would appear that you are the one who's pissed off?
The O.P. is right and I was disappointed to see that, at least initially, he had been modded down just for putting things into perspective. And yes, I used (or rather, had to use) "screen" in the very early 90s... on SCO UNIX, no less! ;-)
Oh, and "screen" was great for TIA, aka The Internet Adapter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Internet_Adapter). Anyone remember that?
RT.
Edited 2012-08-31 07:48 UTC
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2008-05-03
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Actually, it is more a problem now than it has ever been before (maybe except for times of dial-up connections). I tend to work mostly on laptops, and switching between networks, suspending/waking up the machine, or simply losing a wireless connection happens all the time, often on purpose. Generally, relying on a TCP connection for holding the application state is a poor design decision these days.
BTW, this is also the main reason I don't use X for remote work nowadays. It was simply designed for a different use case (a server with fixed terminals). Another reason is that X with its networking performance issues, and without properly configured NFS/NIS, forwarded sound recording/playback, DBUS services, printers, CD-ROMs, card readers etc., is no longer network transparent but it still pretends to be (by mixing up local and remote windows).
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2007-02-22
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2011-05-12
When I started out on the Internet it was all text and UNIX prompts for me. So when I discovered screen it was great.
TinyFugue
Pine (private)
Pine (work)
Tin
ircii
& a couple of shells to different servers.
My 'screen' ran at work, but as it was such a great tool more and more coworkers started using it causing system admins to get annoyed and we had to move server a few times. If you didn't a kill script would kill you (well, your screen session).
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2010-12-22
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2009-05-23
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Aside from terminals not having support for detaching and re-attaching sessions the way screen and tmux do, my responsive, lightweight terminals of choice (uxterm and urxvt) don't always do tabs.
(urxvt does, but it's basically a Perl script that does textual tabs in a manner inferior to screen or tmux)
Also, terminal tabs are less than ideal if you have to open a new SSH connection every time you Ctrl+Shift+T rather than just running screen on the remote system and doing Ctrl+a c.
Member since:2005-08-18
No.
Pressing Ctrl-b+c is a lot quicker and easier than opening a new tab and making a new connection. Not to mention that the screen/tmux session survives disconnects.
Member since:2005-07-06
Say you run apt/yum from command line, using a konsole tab or putty and suddenly, gasp, you lose connection / your X session dies / SSH dies, etc. Recovery, if possible, will be -very- painful.
I never, never, never, never run anything destructive from a normal command prompt - I always use screen.
- Gilboa
Member since:
2012-08-31
Member since:2005-08-18
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2005-07-06
Started using screen after an OSNews article/link a few years ago, now I find it absolutely indispensable. Though it can get a bit disorienting sometimes, especially when working via remote desktop session running PuttyCM, with 3 or 4 tabs/connections open, each with at least 2 or 3 screens open.
My favourite trick with screen is using my smartphone to monitor a long-running process (E.g. rsync'ing a few GB of data from one server to another). I just start the process in a screen session via my desktop/laptop, then connect to the same account through SSH, and use "screen -x [session id]" to connect to the same session. The same strategy also works well for doing remote support/training via SSH (and much easier to setup that most desktop-sharing solutions I've used).
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2007-11-23
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2008-12-26
I use Byobu
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byobu_(software)
Install and try it now, in 5 minutes you'll have forgotten the name ;-).
(copy paste the url, there is an osnews bug where last paren is stripped)
Edited 2012-09-02 05:57 UTC