Screen util - Tips & why to use

Ever happened during some server installation, you really need to pack up and leave? That happens to me almost every day and in the old days, I had to stop what I was doing and start all over again the next day.

Now I use screen as much as I can.

The exact definition of screen can be found here and it’s like this:

Screen is a full-screen window manager that multiplexes a physical terminal
between several processes, typically interactive shells.

Basicly it’s a always on shell within the shell.

First let’s install it everyhere:

For Debian/Ubuntu:

apt install screen

For Fedora:

dnf install screen

For Centos/Redhat:

dnf install screen

For MacOSX:

brew install homebrew/dupes/screen

After it’s installed, just run it: $ screen

First what you need to know it that CTRL-a is the command/super key.

For example:

After launching screen, run top in it. Now, what would you do to see a log file? Probably you would exit the top and see that log file or even star a new ssh login to your machine in order to do both actions at the same time but with screen you don’t have to.

Press CTRL-a c and it will create a new window. Now run a free -m.

You can cycle the windows by pressing CTRL-a n.

It’s like several virtual desktops in your terminal. Isn’t that cool? But wait, the best is yet to come.

If you need to quickly logout but want the top command to keep on running, press CRTL-a d to detach from that screen.

You can even logout from your server and the top command will continue to run.

When you return to your server, run the command screen -r to re-attach to your screens that stayed running in the backgroud.

So in review:

Njoy.