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Tmux and Screen

Tools that allow you to keep a command line process running if you lose connection to the remote system are useful if you are doing a long process like compiling or transfusing a large file. Tmux and Screen are two such tools.

Tmux

Tmux is a program which allows you to have persistent multiple "tabs" in a single terminal window.

  • Useful
    • when eg. a compilation or other operation will take a long time
    • for interactive multitasking
    • for exotic stuff such as pair programming

Typical tmux workflow

Start a new session

tmux new -s s1

Once in the session, run any commands as normal.

Tmux has a large number of shortcut commands too. To access a shortcut, start with the control key in combination with the lower case "b" (ctrl-b). Then follow that with the shortcut option.

To detach the session so you can logout, go home and log in again later:

ctrl-b :detach

To get that same session back later: 

tmux a -t s1 #get the same session back

Other useful tmux commands:

  • ctrl-b ( #switch to previous session
  • ctrl-b ) #switch to next session
  • tmux ls #list all sessions
  • tmux kill-session -t s1 #kill a session

Create Panes and Synchronize with tmux

  • tmux #start a tmux session
  • ctrl-b " #split horizontally
  • ctrl-b % #split vertically
  • ctrl-b :setw synchronize-panes on #synchronized#
  • ctrl-b :setw synchronize-panes off ctrl-b o #move through the panes ctrl-b x #kill the active pane

Screen

Screen is a Linux tool that provides the ability to launch and use multiple shell sessions from a single ssh session. When a process is started with ‘screen’, the process can be detached from session & then can reattach the session at a later time.

Typical Screen workflow

Start a new session

screen -S s1

Once in the session, run any commands as normal.

To detach the session so you can logout, go home and log in again later:

screen -d s1

To get that same session back later: 

screen -r s1

To list all sessions:

screen -ls

To kill a detached session: 

screen -X -S session_name  kill

Screen has a large number of shortcut commands too. To access a shortcut, start with the control key in combination with the lower case "a" (ctrl-a). Then follow that with the shortcut option.

Other useful screen shortcuts:

  • Ctrl-a + d #detach
  • Ctrl-a + p ( #switch to previous window
  • Ctrl-a + n ( #switch to next window
  • Ctrl-a + k #kill the current window.

Create Panes:

  • Ctrl-a + S" #split window horizontally
  • Ctrl-a + | # split window vertically
  • Ctrl-a + Tab # switch between the windows.