
"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.
Member since:
2009-06-30
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).