ScreenCommand
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As the man page states, Screen is a full-screen window manager that multiplexes a physical terminal between several processes (typically interactive shells). A process (shell or command like ls) can be attached to the screen command/session. The screen session won't die or exit until terminated by the attached command/shell. This is useful when working over a flaky network connection. Screen can multiplex commands into a single window so it makes it convenient to open new shell sessions in the same window.
Starting a screen session
You can start a new screen session just by typing 'screen' command. You can name your screen session using -S option as follows:
screen -S screen-getting-started
Screen control keystrokes
| Action | Keystroke |
|---|---|
| Help menu | Ctrl-a ? |
| Version | Ctrl-a v |
| List windows | Ctrl-a w |
| Scroll through windows | Ctrl-a Ctrl-a |
| Rename window session | Ctrl-a A |
| Detach from the screen session | Ctrl-a d |
Screen command options
| Action | Option |
|---|---|
| List screen sessions | screen -list or screen -ls |
| Reattach to a screen session | screen -r <session-name> |
Adding configuration options to screenrc file
You can customize screen settings using command-line options or by creating a screenrc file. See Customization section in the man page for detailed options. See Red Hat magazine article for examples.
Logging screen window to a screenlog file
Screen can log it's window output to a screenlog file. This can be done by invoking screen with -L option.
Viewing screenlog file
Screen log file contains escape characters and hence it's not directly human readable. You can get pretty output using less command with -R or -r options. See stackoverflow answers for hints.