Screen

Screen is an awesome UNIX utility that allows you to continue running commands on a remote system even after you have logged out! Magic! Here is a nice "screen for dummies" tutorial with some links to related sites at the bottom.

On the command line

• screen (will spew some text and then give a prompt) start a screen session
• screen -r reattach to screen session
• screen -d detach an attached screen session (good for logging in after network cuts out)
  

Links

• Power Sessions With Screen
• Screen ASCII cheat sheet

Tips

• Launch screen with an alias such as alias screen='TERM=screen screen' in .bashrc to avoid your backspaces getting mangled
  
• There is a ~/.screenrc file with which you can customize screen

My .screenrc

# don't mangle backspaces
termcapinfo xtermc kD=\E[3~

# no startup message
startup_message off

# set shell that launches
shell /bin/bash

# lots of scrollback
defscrollback 10000

# ignore case when searching in copy mode
ignorecase on

# make it obvious we're within screen
hardstatus string "screen%n - %h"

# vim-style bindings
bind k focus up   # cycle to the above split
bind j focus down # cycle to the below split
bind l next       # cycle to the next split
bind h prev       # cycle to the previous split
bind n split      # create a new split
bind ^N split     # create a new split
bind q remove     # remove the split
bind + resize +3  # increase split three lines
bind - resize -3  # decrease split three lines
bind _ resize max # maximize current split
bind = resize =   # make all splits equal size
bind g info       # display info on the split
bind ^G info      # display info on the split

# other (some defaults, just to remind myself they exist)
bind Q only       # get rid of all other splits but the current one
bind M monitor    # toggle monitoring of the current window
bind t title      # enter a title for this shell
bind a other      # go to most recently viewed other split
bind \' windowlist -b # go to window list
bind x kill       # close the current shell
bind ^X kill      # close the current shell
bind \\ quit      # close all shells