screen
(1)
名称
screen - screen manager with VT100/ANSI terminal emulation
用法概要
screen [ -options ] [ cmd [ args ] ]
screen -r [[pid.]tty[.host]]
screen -r sessionowner/[[pid.]tty[.host]]
描述
User Commands SCREEN(1)
NAME
screen - screen manager with VT100/ANSI terminal emulation
SYNOPSIS
screen [ -options ] [ cmd [ args ] ]
screen -r [[pid.]tty[.host]]
screen -r sessionowner/[[pid.]tty[.host]]
DESCRIPTION
Screen is a full-screen window manager that multiplexes a
physical terminal between several processes (typically
interactive shells). Each virtual terminal provides the
functions of a DEC VT100 terminal and, in addition, several
control functions from the ISO 6429 (ECMA 48, ANSI X3.64)
and ISO 2022 standards (e.g. insert/delete line and support
for multiple character sets). There is a scrollback history
buffer for each virtual terminal and a copy-and-paste mecha-
nism that allows moving text regions between windows.
When screen is called, it creates a single window with a
shell in it (or the specified command) and then gets out of
your way so that you can use the program as you normally
would. Then, at any time, you can create new (full-screen)
windows with other programs in them (including more shells),
kill existing windows, view a list of windows, turn output
logging on and off, copy-and-paste text between windows,
view the scrollback history, switch between windows in what-
ever manner you wish, etc. All windows run their programs
completely independent of each other. Programs continue to
run when their window is currently not visible and even when
the whole screen session is detached from the user's termi-
nal. When a program terminates, screen (per default) kills
the window that contained it. If this window was in the
foreground, the display switches to the previous window; if
none are left, screen exits.
Everything you type is sent to the program running in the
current window. The only exception to this is the one key-
stroke that is used to initiate a command to the window man-
ager. By default, each command begins with a control-a
(abbreviated C-a from now on), and is followed by one other
keystroke. The command character and all the key bindings
can be fully customized to be anything you like, though they
are always two characters in length.
Screen does not understand the prefix "C-" to mean control.
Please use the caret notation ("^A" instead of "C-a") as
arguments to e.g. the escape command or the -e option.
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Screen will also print out control characters in caret nota-
tion.
The standard way to create a new window is to type "C-a c".
This creates a new window running a shell and switches to
that window immediately, regardless of the state of the
process running in the current window. Similarly, you can
create a new window with a custom command in it by first
binding the command to a keystroke (in your .screenrc file
or at the "C-a :" command line) and then using it just like
the "C-a c" command. In addition, new windows can be cre-
ated by running a command like:
screen emacs prog.c
from a shell prompt within a previously created window.
This will not run another copy of screen, but will instead
supply the command name and its arguments to the window man-
ager (specified in the $STY environment variable) who will
use it to create the new window. The above example would
start the emacs editor (editing prog.c) and switch to its
window.
If "/etc/utmp" is writable by screen, an appropriate record
will be written to this file for each window, and removed
when the window is terminated. This is useful for working
with "talk", "script", "shutdown", "rsend", "sccs" and other
similar programs that use the utmp file to determine who you
are. As long as screen is active on your terminal, the ter-
minal's own record is removed from the utmp file. See also
"C-a L".
GETTING STARTED
Before you begin to use screen you'll need to make sure you
have correctly selected your terminal type, just as you
would for any other termcap/terminfo program. (You can do
this by using tset for example.)
If you're impatient and want to get started without doing a
lot more reading, you should remember this one command: "C-
a ?". Typing these two characters will display a list of
the available screen commands and their bindings. Each key-
stroke is discussed in the section "DEFAULT KEY BINDINGS".
The manual section "CUSTOMIZATION" deals with the contents
of your .screenrc.
If your terminal is a "true" auto-margin terminal (it
doesn't allow the last position on the screen to be updated
without scrolling the screen) consider using a version of
your terminal's termcap that has automatic margins turned
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off. This will ensure an accurate and optimal update of the
screen in all circumstances. Most terminals nowadays have
"magic" margins (automatic margins plus usable last column).
This is the VT100 style type and perfectly suited for
screen. If all you've got is a "true" auto-margin terminal
screen will be content to use it, but updating a character
put into the last position on the screen may not be possible
until the screen scrolls or the character is moved into a
safe position in some other way. This delay can be shortened
by using a terminal with insert-character capability.
COMMAND-LINE OPTIONS
Screen has the following command-line options:
-a include all capabilities (with some minor exceptions)
in each window's termcap, even if screen must redraw
parts of the display in order to implement a function.
-A Adapt the sizes of all windows to the size of the cur-
rent terminal. By default, screen tries to restore its
old window sizes when attaching to resizable terminals
(those with "WS" in its description, e.g. suncmd or
some xterm).
-c file
override the default configuration file from
"$HOME/.screenrc" to file.
-d|-D [pid.tty.host]
does not start screen, but detaches the elsewhere run-
ning screen session. It has the same effect as typing
"C-a d" from screen's controlling terminal. -D is the
equivalent to the power detach key. If no session can
be detached, this option is ignored. In combination
with the -r/-R option more powerful effects can be
achieved:
-d -r Reattach a session and if necessary detach it first.
-d -R Reattach a session and if necessary detach or even
create it first.
-d -RR Reattach a session and if necessary detach or create
it. Use the first session if more than one session
is available.
-D -r Reattach a session. If necessary detach and logout
remotely first.
-D -R Attach here and now. In detail this means: If a
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session is running, then reattach. If necessary
detach and logout remotely first. If it was not
running create it and notify the user. This is the
author's favorite.
-D -RR Attach here and now. Whatever that means, just do
it.
Note: It is always a good idea to check the status of
your sessions by means of "screen -list".
-e xy
specifies the command character to be x and the charac-
ter generating a literal command character to y (when
typed after the command character). The default is "C-
a" and `a', which can be specified as "-e^Aa". When
creating a screen session, this option sets the default
command character. In a multiuser session all users
added will start off with this command character. But
when attaching to an already running session, this
option changes only the command character of the
attaching user. This option is equivalent to either
the commands "defescape" or "escape" respectively.
-f, -fn, and -fa
turns flow-control on, off, or "automatic switching
mode". This can also be defined through the "defflow"
.screenrc command.
-h num
Specifies the history scrollback buffer to be num lines
high.
-i will cause the interrupt key (usually C-c) to interrupt
the display immediately when flow-control is on. See
the "defflow" .screenrc command for details. The use
of this option is discouraged.
-l and -ln
turns login mode on or off (for /etc/utmp updating).
This can also be defined through the "deflogin"
.screenrc command.
-ls and -list
does not start screen, but prints a list of
pid.tty.host strings identifying your screen sessions.
Sessions marked `detached' can be resumed with "screen
-r". Those marked `attached' are running and have a
controlling terminal. If the session runs in multiuser
mode, it is marked `multi'. Sessions marked as
`unreachable' either live on a different host or are
`dead'. An unreachable session is considered dead,
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when its name matches either the name of the local
host, or the specified parameter, if any. See the -r
flag for a description how to construct matches. Ses-
sions marked as `dead' should be thoroughly checked and
removed. Ask your system administrator if you are not
sure. Remove sessions with the -wipe option.
-L tells screen to turn on automatic output logging for
the windows.
-m causes screen to ignore the $STY environment variable.
With "screen -m" creation of a new session is enforced,
regardless whether screen is called from within another
screen session or not. This flag has a special meaning
in connection with the `-d' option:
-d -m Start screen in "detached" mode. This creates a new
session but doesn't attach to it. This is useful for
system startup scripts.
-D -m This also starts screen in "detached" mode, but
doesn't fork a new process. The command exits if the
session terminates.
-O selects a more optimal output mode for your terminal
rather than true VT100 emulation (only affects auto-
margin terminals without `LP'). This can also be set
in your .screenrc by specifying `OP' in a "termcap"
command.
-p number_or_name
Preselect a window. This is usefull when you want to
reattach to a specific windor or you want to send a
command via the "-X" option to a specific window. As
with screen's select commant, "-" selects the blank
window. As a special case for reattach, "=" brings up
the windowlist on the blank window.
-q Suppress printing of error messages. In combination
with "-ls" the exit value is as follows: 9 indicates a
directory without sessions. 10 indicates a directory
with running but not attachable sessions. 11 (or more)
indicates 1 (or more) usable sessions. In combination
with "-r" the exit value is as follows: 10 indicates
that there is no session to resume. 12 (or more) indi-
cates that there are 2 (or more) sessions to resume and
you should specify which one to choose. In all other
cases "-q" has no effect.
-r [pid.tty.host]
-r sessionowner/[pid.tty.host]
resumes a detached screen session. No other options
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(except combinations with -d/-D) may be specified,
though an optional prefix of [pid.]tty.host may be
needed to distinguish between multiple detached screen
sessions. The second form is used to connect to
another user's screen session which runs in multiuser
mode. This indicates that screen should look for ses-
sions in another user's directory. This requires
setuid-root.
-R attempts to resume the first detached screen session it
finds. If successful, all other command-line options
are ignored. If no detached session exists, starts a
new session using the specified options, just as if -R
had not been specified. The option is set by default if
screen is run as a login-shell (actually screen uses
"-xRR" in that case). For combinations with the -d/-D
option see there.
-s sets the default shell to the program specified,
instead of the value in the environment variable $SHELL
(or "/bin/sh" if not defined). This can also be
defined through the "shell" .screenrc command.
-S sessionname
When creating a new session, this option can be used to
specify a meaningful name for the session. This name
identifies the session for "screen -list" and "screen
-r" actions. It substitutes the default [tty.host] suf-
fix.
-t name
sets the title (a.k.a.) for the default shell or speci-
fied program. See also the "shelltitle" .screenrc com-
mand.
-U Run screen in UTF-8 mode. This option tells screen that
your terminal sends and understands UTF-8 encoded char-
acters. It also sets the default encoding for new win-
dows to `utf8'.
-v Print version number.
-wipe [match]
does the same as "screen -ls", but removes destroyed
sessions instead of marking them as `dead'. An
unreachable session is considered dead, when its name
matches either the name of the local host, or the
explicitly given parameter, if any. See the -r flag
for a description how to construct matches.
-x Attach to a not detached screen session. (Multi display
mode).
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-X Send the specified command to a running screen session.
You can use the -d or -r option to tell screen to look
only for attached or detached screen sessions. Note
that this command doesn't work if the session is pass-
word protected.
DEFAULT KEY BINDINGS
As mentioned, each screen command consists of a "C-a" fol-
lowed by one other character. For your convenience, all
commands that are bound to lower-case letters are also bound
to their control character counterparts (with the exception
of "C-a a"; see below), thus, "C-a c" as well as "C-a C-c"
can be used to create a window. See section "CUSTOMIZATION"
for a description of the command.
The following table shows the default key bindings:
C-a ' (select) Prompt for a window name or number
to switch to.
C-a " (windowlist -b)
Present a list of all windows for
selection.
C-a 0 (select 0)
... ...
C-a 9 (select 9)
C-a - (select -) Switch to window number 0 - 9, or
to the blank window.
C-a tab (focus) Switch the input focus to the next
region.
C-a C-a (other) Toggle to the window displayed
previously. Note that this bind-
ing defaults to the command char-
acter typed twice, unless overrid-
den. For instance, if you use the
option "-e]x", this command
becomes "]]".
C-a a (meta) Send the command character (C-a)
to window. See escape command.
C-a A (title) Allow the user to enter a name for
the current window.
C-a b
C-a C-b (break) Send a break to window.
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C-a B (pow_break) Reopen the terminal line and send
a break.
C-a c
C-a C-c (screen) Create a new window with a shell
and switch to that window.
C-a C (clear) Clear the screen.
C-a d
C-a C-d (detach) Detach screen from this terminal.
C-a D D (pow_detach) Detach and logout.
C-a f
C-a C-f (flow) Toggle flow on, off or auto.
C-a F (fit) Resize the window to the current
region size.
C-a C-g (vbell) Toggles screen's visual bell mode.
C-a h (hardcopy) Write a hardcopy of the current
window to the file "hardcopy.n".
C-a H (log) Begins/ends logging of the current
window to the file "screenlog.n".
C-a i
C-a C-i (info) Show info about this window.
C-a k
C-a C-k (kill) Destroy current window.
C-a l
C-a C-l (redisplay) Fully refresh current window.
C-a L (login) Toggle this windows login slot.
Available only if screen is con-
figured to update the utmp data-
base.
C-a m
C-a C-m (lastmsg) Repeat the last message displayed
in the message line.
C-a M (monitor) Toggles monitoring of the current
window.
C-a space
C-a n
C-a C-n (next) Switch to the next window.
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C-a N (number) Show the number (and title) of the
current window.
C-a backspace
C-a h
C-a p
C-a C-p (prev) Switch to the previous window
(opposite of C-a n).
C-a q
C-a C-q (xon) Send a control-q to the current
window.
C-a Q (only) Delete all regions but the current
one.
C-a r
C-a C-r (wrap) Toggle the current window's line-
wrap setting (turn the current
window's automatic margins on and
off).
C-a s
C-a C-s (xoff) Send a control-s to the current
window.
C-a S (split) Split the current region into two
new ones.
C-a t
C-a C-t (time) Show system information.
C-a v (version) Display the version and compila-
tion date.
C-a C-v (digraph) Enter digraph.
C-a w
C-a C-w (windows) Show a list of window.
C-a W (width) Toggle 80/132 columns.
C-a x
C-a C-x (lockscreen) Lock this terminal.
C-a X (remove) Kill the current region.
C-a z
C-a C-z (suspend) Suspend screen. Your system must
support BSD-style job-control.
C-a Z (reset) Reset the virtual terminal to its
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"power-on" values.
C-a . (dumptermcap) Write out a ".termcap" file.
C-a ? (help) Show key bindings.
C-a C-\ (quit) Kill all windows and terminate
screen.
C-a : (colon) Enter command line mode.
C-a [
C-a C-[
C-a esc (copy) Enter copy/scrollback mode.
C-a ] (paste .) Write the contents of the paste
buffer to the stdin queue of the
current window.
C-a {
C-a } (history) Copy and paste a previous (com-
mand) line.
C-a > (writebuf) Write paste buffer to a file.
C-a < (readbuf) Reads the screen-exchange file
into the paste buffer.
C-a = (removebuf) Removes the file used by C-a < and
C-a >.
C-a , (license) Shows where screen comes from,
where it went to and why you can
use it.
C-a _ (silence) Start/stop monitoring the current
window for inactivity.
C-a * (displays) Show a listing of all currently
attached displays.
CUSTOMIZATION
The "socket directory" defaults either to $HOME/.screen or
simply to /tmp/screens or preferably to /usr/local/screens
chosen at compile-time. If screen is installed setuid-root,
then the administrator should compile screen with an ade-
quate (not NFS mounted) socket directory. If screen is not
running setuid-root, the user can specify any mode 700
directory in the environment variable $SCREENDIR.
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When screen is invoked, it executes initialization commands
from the files "/usr/local/etc/screenrc" and ".screenrc" in
the user's home directory. These are the "programmer's
defaults" that can be overridden in the following ways: for
the global screenrc file screen searches for the environment
variable $SYSSCREENRC (this override feature may be disabled
at compile-time). The user specific screenrc file is
searched in $SCREENRC, then $HOME/.screenrc. The command
line option -c takes precedence over the above user screenrc
files.
Commands in these files are used to set options, bind func-
tions to keys, and to automatically establish one or more
windows at the beginning of your screen session. Commands
are listed one per line, with empty lines being ignored. A
command's arguments are separated by tabs or spaces, and may
be surrounded by single or double quotes. A `#' turns the
rest of the line into a comment, except in quotes. Unintel-
ligible lines are warned about and ignored. Commands may
contain references to environment variables. The syntax is
the shell-like "$VAR " or "${VAR}". Note that this causes
incompatibility with previous screen versions, as now the
'$'-character has to be protected with '\' if no variable
substitution shall be performed. A string in single-quotes
is also protected from variable substitution.
Two configuration files are shipped as examples with your
screen distribution: "etc/screenrc" and "etc/etcscreenrc".
They contain a number of useful examples for various com-
mands.
Customization can also be done 'on-line'. To enter the com-
mand mode type `C-a :'. Note that commands starting with
"def" change default values, while others change current
settings.
The following commands are available:
acladd usernames [crypted-pw]
addacl usernames
Enable users to fully access this screen session. Usernames
can be one user or a comma separated list of users. This
command enables to attach to the screen session and performs
the equivalent of `aclchg usernames +rwx "#?"'. executed.
To add a user with restricted access, use the `aclchg' com-
mand below. If an optional second parameter is supplied, it
should be a crypted password for the named user(s). `Addacl'
is a synonym to `acladd'. Multi user mode only.
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aclchg usernames permbits list
chacl usernames permbits list
Change permissions for a comma separated list of users. Per-
mission bits are represented as `r', `w' and `x'. Prefixing
`+' grants the permission, `-' removes it. The third parame-
ter is a comma separated list of commands and/or windows
(specified either by number or title). The special list `#'
refers to all windows, `?' to all commands. if usernames
consists of a single `*', all known users are affected. A
command can be executed when the user has the `x' bit for
it. The user can type input to a window when he has its `w'
bit set and no other user obtains a writelock for this win-
dow. Other bits are currently ignored. To withdraw the
writelock from another user in window 2: `aclchg username
-w+w 2'. To allow read-only access to the session: `aclchg
username -w "#"'. As soon as a user's name is known to
screen he can attach to the session and (per default) has
full permissions for all command and windows. Execution per-
mission for the acl commands, `at' and others should also be
removed or the user may be able to regain write permission.
Rights of the special username nobody cannot be changed (see
the "su" command). `Chacl' is a synonym to `aclchg'. Multi
user mode only.
acldel username
Remove a user from screen's access control list. If cur-
rently attached, all the user's displays are detached from
the session. He cannot attach again. Multi user mode only.
aclgrp username [groupname]
Creates groups of users that share common access rights. The
name of the group is the username of the group leader. Each
member of the group inherits the permissions that are
granted to the group leader. That means, if a user fails an
access check, another check is made for the group leader. A
user is removed from all groups the special value "none" is
used for groupname. If the second parameter is omitted all
groups the user is in are listed.
aclumask [[users]+bits |[users]-bits .... ]
umask [[users]+bits |[users]-bits .... ]
This specifies the access other users have to windows that
will be created by the caller of the command. Users may be
no, one or a comma separated list of known usernames. If no
users are specified, a list of all currently known users is
assumed. Bits is any combination of access control bits
allowed defined with the "aclchg" command. The special user-
name "?" predefines the access that not yet known users will
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be granted to any window initially. The special username
"??" predefines the access that not yet known users are
granted to any command. Rights of the special username
nobody cannot be changed (see the "su" command). `Umask' is
a synonym to `aclumask'.
activity message
When any activity occurs in a background window that is
being monitored, screen displays a notification in the mes-
sage line. The notification message can be re-defined by
means of the "activity" command. Each occurrence of `%' in
message is replaced by the number of the window in which
activity has occurred, and each occurrence of `^G' is
replaced by the definition for bell in your termcap (usually
an audible bell). The default message is
'Activity in window %n'
Note that monitoring is off for all windows by default, but
can be altered by use of the "monitor" command (C-a M).
allpartial on|off
If set to on, only the current cursor line is refreshed on
window change. This affects all windows and is useful for
slow terminal lines. The previous setting of full/partial
refresh for each window is restored with "allpartial off".
This is a global flag that immediately takes effect on all
windows overriding the "partial" settings. It does not
change the default redraw behavior of newly created windows.
altscreen on|off
If set to on, "alternate screen" support is enabled in vir-
tual terminals, just like in xterm. Initial setting is
`off'.
at [identifier][#|*|%] command [args ... ]
Execute a command at other displays or windows as if it had
been entered there. "At" changes the context (the `current
window' or `current display' setting) of the command. If the
first parameter describes a non-unique context, the command
will be executed multiple times. If the first parameter is
of the form `identifier*' then identifier is matched against
user names. The command is executed once for each display
of the selected user(s). If the first parameter is of the
form `identifier%' identifier is matched against displays.
Displays are named after the ttys they attach. The prefix
`/dev/' or `/dev/tty' may be omitted from the identifier.
If identifier has a `#' or nothing appended it is matched
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against window numbers and titles. Omitting an identifier in
front of the `#', `*' or `%'-character selects all users,
displays or windows because a prefix-match is performed.
Note that on the affected display(s) a short message will
describe what happened. Permission is checked for initiator
of the "at" command, not for the owners of the affected dis-
play(s). Note that the '#' character works as a comment
introducer when it is preceded by whitespace. This can be
escaped by prefixing a '\'. Permission is checked for the
initiator of the "at" command, not for the owners of the
affected display(s).
Caveat: When matching against windows, the command is exe-
cuted at least once per window. Commands that change the
internal arrangement of windows (like "other") may be called
again. In shared windows the command will be repeated for
each attached display. Beware, when issuing toggle commands
like "login"! Some commands (e.g. "process") require that a
display is associated with the target windows. These com-
mands may not work correctly under "at" looping over win-
dows.
attrcolor attrib [attribute/color-modifier]
This command can be used to highlight attributes by changing
the color of the text. If the attribute attrib is in use,
the specified attribute/color modifier is also applied. If
no modifier is given, the current one is deleted. See the
"STRING ESCAPES" chapter for the syntax of the modifier.
Screen understands two pseudo-attributes, "i" stands for
high-intensity foreground color and "I" for high-intensity
background color.
Examples:
attrcolor b "R"
Change the color to bright red if bold text is to be
printed.
attrcolor u "-u b"
Use blue text instead of underline.
attrcolor b ".I"
Use bright colors for bold text. Most terminal emulators do
this already.
attrcolor i "+b"
Make bright colored text also bold.
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autodetach on|off
Sets whether screen will automatically detach upon hangup,
which saves all your running programs until they are resumed
with a screen -r command. When turned off, a hangup signal
will terminate screen and all the processes it contains.
Autodetach is on by default.
autonuke on|off
Sets whether a clear screen sequence should nuke all the
output that has not been written to the terminal. See also
"obuflimit".
backtick id lifespan autorefresh cmd args...
backtick id
Program the backtick command with the numerical id id. The
output of such a command is used for substitution of the
"%`" string escape. The specified lifespan is the number of
seconds the output is considered valid. After this time, the
command is run again if a corresponding string escape is
encountered. The autorefresh parameter triggers an auto-
matic refresh for caption and hardstatus strings after the
specified number of seconds. Only the last line of output is
used for substitution.
If both the lifespan and the autorefresh parameters are
zero, the backtick program is expected to stay in the back-
ground and generate output once in a while. In this case,
the command is executed right away and screen stores the
last line of output. If a new line gets printed screen will
automatically refresh the hardstatus or the captions.
The second form of the command deletes the backtick command
with the numerical id id.
bce [on|off]
Change background-color-erase setting. If "bce" is set to
on, all characters cleared by an erase/insert/scroll/clear
operation will be displayed in the current background color.
Otherwise the default background color is used.
bell_msg [message]
When a bell character is sent to a background window, screen
displays a notification in the message line. The notifica-
tion message can be re-defined by this command. Each occur-
rence of `%' in message is replaced by the number of the
window to which a bell has been sent, and each occurrence of
`^G' is replaced by the definition for bell in your termcap
(usually an audible bell). The default message is
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'Bell in window %n'
An empty message can be supplied to the "bell_msg" command
to suppress output of a message line (bell_msg ""). Without
parameter, the current message is shown.
bind [-c class] key [command [args]]
Bind a command to a key. By default, most of the commands
provided by screen are bound to one or more keys as indi-
cated in the "DEFAULT KEY BINDINGS" section, e.g. the com-
mand to create a new window is bound to "C-c" and "c". The
"bind" command can be used to redefine the key bindings and
to define new bindings. The key argument is either a single
character, a two-character sequence of the form "^x" (mean-
ing "C-x"), a backslash followed by an octal number (speci-
fying the ASCII code of the character), or a backslash fol-
lowed by a second character, such as "\^" or "\\". The
argument can also be quoted, if you like. If no further
argument is given, any previously established binding for
this key is removed. The command argument can be any com-
mand listed in this section.
If a command class is specified via the "-c" option, the key
is bound for the specified class. Use the "command" command
to activate a class. Command classes can be used to create
multiple command keys or multi-character bindings.
Some examples:
bind ' ' windows
bind ^k
bind k
bind K kill
bind ^f screen telnet foobar
bind \033 screen -ln -t root -h 1000 9 su
would bind the space key to the command that displays a list
of windows (so that the command usually invoked by "C-a C-w"
would also be available as "C-a space"). The next three
lines remove the default kill binding from "C-a C-k" and "C-
a k". "C-a K" is then bound to the kill command. Then it
binds "C-f" to the command "create a window with a TELNET
connection to foobar", and bind "escape" to the command that
creates an non-login window with a.k.a. "root" in slot #9,
with a superuser shell and a scrollback buffer of 1000
lines.
bind -c demo1 0 select 10
bind -c demo1 1 select 11
bind -c demo1 2 select 12
bindkey "^B" command -c demo1
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makes "C-b 0" select window 10, "C-b 1" window 11, etc.
bind -c demo2 0 select 10
bind -c demo2 1 select 11
bind -c demo2 2 select 12
bind - command -c demo2
makes "C-a - 0" select window 10, "C-a - 1" window 11, etc.
bindkey [-d] [-m] [-a] [[-k|-t] string [cmd args]]
This command manages screen's input translation tables.
Every entry in one of the tables tells screen how to react
if a certain sequence of characters is encountered. There
are three tables: one that should contain actions programmed
by the user, one for the default actions used for terminal
emulation and one for screen's copy mode to do cursor move-
ment. See section "INPUT TRANSLATION" for a list of default
key bindings.
If the -d option is given, bindkey modifies the default ta-
ble, -m changes the copy mode table and with neither option
the user table is selected. The argument string is the
sequence of characters to which an action is bound. This can
either be a fixed string or a termcap keyboard capability
name (selectable with the -k option).
Some keys on a VT100 terminal can send a different string if
application mode is turned on (e.g the cursor keys). Such
keys have two entries in the translation table. You can
select the application mode entry by specifying the -a
option.
The -t option tells screen not to do inter-character timing.
One cannot turn off the timing if a termcap capability is
used.
Cmd can be any of screen's commands with an arbitrary number
of args. If cmd is omitted the key-binding is removed from
the table.
Here are some examples of keyboard bindings:
bindkey -d
Show all of the default key bindings. The application mode
entries are marked with [A].
bindkey -k k1 select 1
Make the "F1" key switch to window one.
bindkey -t foo stuff barfoo
Make "foo" an abbreviation of the word "barfoo". Timeout is
disabled so that users can type slowly.
bindkey "\024" mapdefault
This key-binding makes "^T" an escape character for key-
bindings. If you did the above "stuff barfoo" binding, you
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User Commands SCREEN(1)
can enter the word "foo" by typing "^Tfoo". If you want to
insert a "^T" you have to press the key twice (i.e. escape
the escape binding).
bindkey -k F1 command
Make the F11 (not F1!) key an alternative screen escape
(besides ^A).
break [duration]
Send a break signal for duration*0.25 seconds to this win-
dow. For non-Posix systems the time interval may be rounded
up to full seconds. Most useful if a character device is
attached to the window rather than a shell process (See also
chapter "WINDOW TYPES"). The maximum duration of a break
signal is limited to 15 seconds.
blanker
Activate the screen blanker. First the screen is cleared. If
no blanker program is defined, the cursor is turned off,
otherwise, the program is started and it's output is written
to the screen. The screen blanker is killed with the first
keypress, the read key is discarded.
This command is normally used together with the "idle" com-
mand.
blankerprg [program args]
Defines a blanker program. Disables the blanker program if
no arguments are given.
breaktype [tcsendbreak|TIOCSBRK |TCSBRK]
Choose one of the available methods of generating a break
signal for terminal devices. This command should affect the
current window only. But it still behaves identical to
"defbreaktype". This will be changed in the future. Calling
"breaktype" with no parameter displays the break method for
the current window.
bufferfile [exchange-file]
Change the filename used for reading and writing with the
paste buffer. If the optional argument to the "bufferfile"
command is omitted, the default setting ("/tmp/screen-
exchange") is reactivated. The following example will paste
the system's password file into the screen window (using the
paste buffer, where a copy remains):
C-a : bufferfile /etc/passwd
C-a < C-a ]
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C-a : bufferfile
c1 [on|off]
Change c1 code processing. "C1 on" tells screen to treat the
input characters between 128 and 159 as control functions.
Such an 8-bit code is normally the same as ESC followed by
the corresponding 7-bit code. The default setting is to
process c1 codes and can be changed with the "defc1" com-
mand. Users with fonts that have usable characters in the
c1 positions may want to turn this off.
caption always|splitonly [string]
caption string [string]
This command controls the display of the window captions.
Normally a caption is only used if more than one window is
shown on the display (split screen mode). But if the type is
set to always screen shows a caption even if only one window
is displayed. The default is splitonly.
The second form changes the text used for the caption. You
can use all escapes from the "STRING ESCAPES" chapter.
Screen uses a default of `%3n %t'.
You can mix both forms by providing a string as an addi-
tional argument.
charset set
Change the current character set slot designation and
charset mapping. The first four character of set are
treated as charset designators while the fifth and sixth
character must be in range '0' to '3' and set the GL/GR
charset mapping. On every position a '.' may be used to
indicate that the corresponding charset/mapping should not
be changed (set is padded to six characters internally by
appending '.' chars). New windows have "BBBB02" as default
charset, unless a "encoding" command is active.
The current setting can be viewed with the "info" command.
chdir [directory]
Change the current directory of screen to the specified
directory or, if called without an argument, to your home
directory (the value of the environment variable $HOME).
All windows that are created by means of the "screen" com-
mand from within ".screenrc" or by means of "C-a : screen
..." or "C-a c" use this as their default directory. With-
out a chdir command, this would be the directory from which
screen was invoked. Hardcopy and log files are always writ-
ten to the window's default directory, not the current
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directory of the process running in the window. You can use
this command multiple times in your .screenrc to start vari-
ous windows in different default directories, but the last
chdir value will affect all the windows you create interac-
tively.
clear
Clears the current window and saves its image to the scroll-
back buffer.
colon [prefix]
Allows you to enter ".screenrc" command lines. Useful for
on-the-fly modification of key bindings, specific window
creation and changing settings. Note that the "set" keyword
no longer exists! Usually commands affect the current window
rather than default settings for future windows. Change
defaults with commands starting with 'def...'.
If you consider this as the `Ex command mode' of screen, you
may regard "C-a esc" (copy mode) as its `Vi command mode'.
command [-c class]
This command has the same effect as typing the screen escape
character (^A). It is probably only useful for key bindings.
If the "-c" option is given, select the specified command
class. See also "bind" and "bindkey".
compacthist [on|off]
This tells screen whether to suppress trailing blank lines
when scrolling up text into the history buffer.
console [on|off]
Grabs or un-grabs the machines console output to a window.
Note: Only the owner of /dev/console can grab the console
output. This command is only available if the machine sup-
ports the ioctl TIOCCONS.
copy
Enter copy/scrollback mode. This allows you to copy text
from the current window and its history into the paste
buffer. In this mode a vi-like `full screen editor' is
active:
Movement keys:
h, j, k, l move the cursor line by line or column by col-
umn.
0, ^ and $ move to the leftmost column, to the first or
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last non-whitespace character on the line.
H, M and L move the cursor to the leftmost column of the
top, center or bottom line of the window.
+ and - positions one line up and down.
G moves to the specified absolute line (default: end of
buffer).
| moves to the specified absolute column.
w, b, e move the cursor word by word.
B, E move the cursor WORD by WORD (as in vi).
C-u and C-d scroll the display up/down by the specified
amount of lines while preserving the cursor position.
(Default: half screen-full).
C-b and C-f scroll the display up/down a full screen.
g moves to the beginning of the buffer.
% jumps to the specified percentage of the buffer.
Note:
Emacs style movement keys can be customized by a
.screenrc command. (E.g. markkeys "h=^B:l=^F:$=^E")
There is no simple method for a full emacs-style keymap,
as this involves multi-character codes.
Marking:
The copy range is specified by setting two marks. The
text between these marks will be highlighted. Press
space to set the first or second mark respectively.
Y and y used to mark one whole line or to mark from start
of line.
W marks exactly one word.
Repeat count:
Any of these commands can be prefixed with a repeat
count number by pressing digits
0..9 which is taken as a repeat count.
Example: "C-a C-[ H 10 j 5 Y" will copy lines 11 to 15
into the paste buffer.
Searching:
/ Vi-like search forward.
? Vi-like search backward.
C-a s Emacs style incremental search forward.
C-r Emacs style reverse i-search.
Specials:
There are however some keys that act differently than in
vi. Vi does not allow one to yank rectangular blocks of
text, but screen does. Press
c or C to set the left or right margin respectively. If no
repeat count is given, both default to the current cur-
sor position.
Example: Try this on a rather full text screen: "C-a [ M
20 l SPACE c 10 l 5 j C SPACE".
This moves one to the middle line of the screen, moves
in 20 columns left, marks the beginning of the paste
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buffer, sets the left column, moves 5 columns down, sets
the right column, and then marks the end of the paste
buffer. Now try:
"C-a [ M 20 l SPACE 10 l 5 j SPACE"
and notice the difference in the amount of text copied.
J joins lines. It toggles between 4 modes: lines separated
by a newline character (012), lines glued seamless,
lines separated by a single whitespace and comma sepa-
rated lines. Note that you can prepend the newline char-
acter with a carriage return character, by issuing a
"crlf on".
v is for all the vi users with ":set numbers" - it toggles
the left margin between column 9 and 1. Press
a before the final space key to toggle in append mode.
Thus the contents of the paste buffer will not be over-
written, but is appended to.
A toggles in append mode and sets a (second) mark.
> sets the (second) mark and writes the contents of the
paste buffer to the screen-exchange file (/tmp/screen-
exchange per default) once copy-mode is finished.
This example demonstrates how to dump the whole scroll-
back buffer to that file: "C-A [ g SPACE G $ >".
C-g gives information about the current line and column.
x exchanges the first mark and the current cursor posi-
tion. You can use this to adjust an already placed mark.
@ does nothing. Does not even exit copy mode.
All keys not described here exit copy mode.
copy_reg [key]
No longer exists, use "readreg" instead.
crlf [on|off]
This affects the copying of text regions with the `C-a ['
command. If it is set to `on', lines will be separated by
the two character sequence `CR' - `LF'. Otherwise (default)
only `LF' is used. When no parameter is given, the state is
toggled.
debug on|off
Turns runtime debugging on or off. If screen has been com-
piled with option -DDEBUG debugging available and is turned
on per default. Note that this command only affects debug-
ging output from the main "SCREEN" process correctly. Debug
output from attacher processes can only be turned off once
and forever.
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defc1 on|off
Same as the c1 command except that the default setting for
new windows is changed. Initial setting is `on'.
defautonuke on|off
Same as the autonuke command except that the default setting
for new displays is changed. Initial setting is `off'. Note
that you can use the special `AN' terminal capability if you
want to have a dependency on the terminal type.
defbce on|off
Same as the bce command except that the default setting for
new windows is changed. Initial setting is `off'.
defbreaktype [tcsendbreak|TIOCSBRK |TCSBRK]
Choose one of the available methods of generating a break
signal for terminal devices. The preferred methods are
tcsendbreak and TIOCSBRK. The third, TCSBRK, blocks the
complete screen session for the duration of the break, but
it may be the only way to generate long breaks. Tcsendbreak
and TIOCSBRK may or may not produce long breaks with spikes
(e.g. 4 per second). This is not only system dependant, this
also differs between serial board drivers. Calling "def-
breaktype" with no parameter displays the current setting.
defcharset [set]
Like the charset command except that the default setting for
new windows is changed. Shows current default if called
without argument.
defescape xy
Set the default command characters. This is equivalent to
the "escape" except that it is useful multiuser sessions
only. In a multiuser session "escape" changes the command
character of the calling user, where "defescape" changes the
default command characters for users that will be added
later.
defflow on|off|auto [interrupt]
Same as the flow command except that the default setting for
new windows is changed. Initial setting is `auto'. Specify-
ing "defflow auto interrupt" is the same as the command-line
options -fa and -i.
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defgr on|off
Same as the gr command except that the default setting for
new windows is changed. Initial setting is `off'.
defhstatus [status]
The hardstatus line that all new windows will get is set to
status. This command is useful to make the hardstatus of
every window display the window number or title or the like.
Status may contain the same directives as in the window mes-
sages, but the directive escape character is '^E' (octal
005) instead of '%'. This was done to make a misinterpreta-
tion of program generated hardstatus lines impossible. If
the parameter status is omitted, the current default string
is displayed. Per default the hardstatus line of new win-
dows is empty.
defencoding enc
Same as the encoding command except that the default setting
for new windows is changed. Initial setting is the encoding
taken from the terminal.
deflog on|off
Same as the log command except that the default setting for
new windows is changed. Initial setting is `off'.
deflogin on|off
Same as the login command except that the default setting
for new windows is changed. This is initialized with `on' as
distributed (see config.h.in).
defmode mode
The mode of each newly allocated pseudo-tty is set to mode.
Mode is an octal number. When no "defmode" command is
given, mode 0622 is used.
defmonitor on|off
Same as the monitor command except that the default setting
for new windows is changed. Initial setting is `off'.
defnonblock on|off|numsecs
Same as the nonblock command except that the default setting
for displays is changed. Initial setting is `off'.
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User Commands SCREEN(1)
defobuflimit limit
Same as the obuflimit command except that the default set-
ting for new displays is changed. Initial setting is 256
bytes. Note that you can use the special 'OL' terminal
capability if you want to have a dependency on the terminal
type.
defscrollback num
Same as the scrollback command except that the default set-
ting for new windows is changed. Initial setting is 100.
defshell command
Synonym to the shell command. See there.
defsilence on|off
Same as the silence command except that the default setting
for new windows is changed. Initial setting is `off'.
defslowpaste msec
Same as the slowpaste command except that the default set-
ting for new windows is changed. Initial setting is 0 mil-
liseconds, meaning `off'.
defutf8 on|off
Same as the utf8 command except that the default setting for
new windows is changed. Initial setting is `on' if screen
was started with "-U", otherwise `off'.
defwrap on|off
Same as the wrap command except that the default setting for
new windows is changed. Initially line-wrap is on and can be
toggled with the "wrap" command ("C-a r") or by means of "C-
a : wrap on|off".
defwritelock on|off|auto
Same as the writelock command except that the default set-
ting for new windows is changed. Initially writelocks will
off.
defzombie [keys]
Synonym to the zombie command. Both currently change the
default. See there.
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User Commands SCREEN(1)
detach [-h]
Detach the screen session (disconnect it from the terminal
and put it into the background). This returns you to the
shell where you invoked screen. A detached screen can be
resumed by invoking screen with the -r option (see also sec-
tion "COMMAND-LINE OPTIONS"). The -h option tells screen to
immediately close the connection to the terminal ("hangup").
dinfo
Show what screen thinks about your terminal. Useful if you
want to know why features like color or the alternate
charset don't work.
displays
Shows a tabular listing of all currently connected user
front-ends (displays). This is most useful for multiuser
sessions.
digraph [preset]
This command prompts the user for a digraph sequence. The
next two characters typed are looked up in a builtin table
and the resulting character is inserted in the input stream.
For example, if the user enters 'a"', an a-umlaut will be
inserted. If the first character entered is a 0 (zero),
screen will treat the following characters (up to three) as
an octal number instead. The optional argument preset is
treated as user input, thus one can create an "umlaut" key.
For example the command "bindkey ^K digraph '"'" enables the
user to generate an a-umlaut by typing CTRL-K a.
dumptermcap
Write the termcap entry for the virtual terminal optimized
for the currently active window to the file ".termcap" in
the user's "$HOME/.screen" directory (or wherever screen
stores its sockets. See the "FILES" section below). This
termcap entry is identical to the value of the environment
variable $TERMCAP that is set up by screen for each window.
For terminfo based systems you will need to run a converter
like captoinfo and then compile the entry with tic.
echo [-n] message
The echo command may be used to annoy screen users with a
'message of the day'. Typically installed in a global
/local/etc/screenrc. The option "-n" may be used to sup-
press the line feed. See also "sleep". Echo is also useful
for online checking of environment variables.
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encoding enc [enc]
Tell screen how to interpret the input/output. The first
argument sets the encoding of the current window. Each win-
dow can emulate a different encoding. The optional second
parameter overwrites the encoding of the connected terminal.
It should never be needed as screen uses the locale setting
to detect the encoding. There is also a way to select a
terminal encoding depending on the terminal type by using
the "KJ" termcap entry.
Supported encodings are eucJP, SJIS, eucKR, eucCN, Big5,
GBK, KOI8-R, CP1251, UTF-8, ISO8859-2, ISO8859-3, ISO8859-4,
ISO8859-5, ISO8859-6, ISO8859-7, ISO8859-8, ISO8859-9,
ISO8859-10, ISO8859-15, jis.
See also "defencoding", which changes the default setting of
a new window.
escape xy
Set the command character to x and the character generating
a literal command character (by triggering the "meta" com-
mand) to y (similar to the -e option). Each argument is
either a single character, a two-character sequence of the
form "^x" (meaning "C-x"), a backslash followed by an octal
number (specifying the ASCII code of the character), or a
backslash followed by a second character, such as "\^" or
"\\". The default is "^Aa".
eval command1 [command2 ...]
Parses and executes each argument as separate command.
exec [[fdpat] newcommand [args ...]]
Run a unix subprocess (specified by an executable path new-
command and its optional arguments) in the current window.
The flow of data between newcommands stdin/stdout/stderr,
the process originally started in the window (let us call it
"application-process") and screen itself (window) is con-
trolled by the filedescriptor pattern fdpat. This pattern
is basically a three character sequence representing stdin,
stdout and stderr of newcommand. A dot (.) connects the file
descriptor to screen. An exclamation mark (!) causes the
file descriptor to be connected to the application-process.
A colon (:) combines both. User input will go to newcommand
unless newcommand receives the application-process' output
(fdpats first character is `!' or `:') or a pipe symbol (|)
is added (as a fourth character) to the end of fdpat.
Invoking `exec' without arguments shows name and arguments
of the currently running subprocess in this window. Only one
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User Commands SCREEN(1)
subprocess a time can be running in each window.
When a subprocess is running the `kill' command will affect
it instead of the windows process.
Refer to the postscript file `doc/fdpat.ps' for a confusing
illustration of all 21 possible combinations. Each drawing
shows the digits 2,1,0 representing the three file descrip-
tors of newcommand. The box marked `W' is the usual pty that
has the application-process on its slave side. The box
marked `P' is the secondary pty that now has screen at its
master side.
Abbreviations:
Whitespace between the word `exec' and fdpat and the command
can be omitted. Trailing dots and a fdpat consisting only of
dots can be omitted. A simple `|' is synonymous for the pat-
tern `!..|'; the word exec can be omitted here and can
always be replaced by `!'.
Examples:
exec ... /bin/sh
exec /bin/sh
!/bin/sh
Creates another shell in the same window, while the original
shell is still running. Output of both shells is displayed
and user input is sent to the new /bin/sh.
exec !.. stty 19200
exec ! stty 19200
!!stty 19200
Set the speed of the window's tty. If your stty command
operates on stdout, then add another `!'.
exec !..| less
|less
This adds a pager to the window output. The special charac-
ter `|' is needed to give the user control over the pager
although it gets its input from the window's process. This
works, because less listens on stderr (a behavior that
screen would not expect without the `|') when its stdin is
not a tty. Less versions newer than 177 fail miserably
here; good old pg still works.
!:sed -n s/.*Error.*/\007/p
Sends window output to both, the user and the sed command.
The sed inserts an additional bell character (oct. 007) to
the window output seen by screen. This will cause "Bell in
window x" messages, whenever the string "Error" appears in
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User Commands SCREEN(1)
the window.
fit
Change the window size to the size of the current region.
This command is needed because screen doesn't adapt the win-
dow size automatically if the window is displayed more than
once.
flow [on|off|auto]
Sets the flow-control mode for this window. Without parame-
ters it cycles the current window's flow-control setting
from "automatic" to "on" to "off". See the discussion on
"FLOW-CONTROL" later on in this document for full details
and note, that this is subject to change in future releases.
Default is set by `defflow'.
focus [up|down|
Move the input focus to the next region. This is done in a
cyclic way so that the top region is selected after the bot-
tom one. If no subcommand is given it defaults to `down'.
`up' cycles in the opposite order, `top' and `bottom' go to
the top and bottom region respectively. Useful bindings are
(j and k as in vi)
bind j focus down
bind k focus up
bind t focus top
bind b focus bottom
gr [on|off]
Turn GR charset switching on/off. Whenever screen sees an
input character with the 8th bit set, it will use the
charset stored in the GR slot and print the character with
the 8th bit stripped. The default (see also "defgr") is not
to process GR switching because otherwise the ISO88591
charset would not work.
hardcopy [-h] [file]
Writes out the currently displayed image to the file file,
or, if no filename is specified, to hardcopy.n in the
default directory, where n is the number of the current win-
dow. This either appends or overwrites the file if it
exists. See below. If the option -h is specified, dump also
the contents of the scrollback buffer.
hardcopy_append on|off
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If set to "on", screen will append to the "hardcopy.n" files
created by the command "C-a h", otherwise these files are
overwritten each time. Default is `off'.
hardcopydir directory
Defines a directory where hardcopy files will be placed. If
unset, hardcopys are dumped in screen's current working
directory.
hardstatus [on|off]
hardstatus [always]lastline|message|ignore [string]
hardstatus string [string]
This command configures the use and emulation of the termi-
nal's hardstatus line. The first form toggles whether screen
will use the hardware status line to display messages. If
the flag is set to `off', these messages are overlaid in
reverse video mode at the display line. The default setting
is `on'.
The second form tells screen what to do if the terminal
doesn't have a hardstatus line (i.e. the termcap/terminfo
capabilities "hs", "ts", "fs" and "ds" are not set). If the
type "lastline" is used, screen will reserve the last line
of the display for the hardstatus. "message" uses screen's
message mechanism and "ignore" tells screen never to display
the hardstatus. If you prepend the word "always" to the
type (e.g., "alwayslastline"), screen will use the type even
if the terminal supports a hardstatus.
The third form specifies the contents of the hardstatus
line. '%h' is used as default string, i.e. the stored hard-
status of the current window (settable via
"ESC]0;<string>^G" or "ESC_<string>ESC\") is displayed. You
can customize this to any string you like including the
escapes from the "STRING ESCAPES" chapter. If you leave out
the argument string, the current string is displayed.
You can mix the second and third form by providing the
string as additional argument.
height [-w|-d] [lines [cols]]
Set the display height to a specified number of lines. When
no argument is given it toggles between 24 and 42 lines dis-
play. You can also specify a width if you want to change
both values. The -w option tells screen to leave the dis-
play size unchanged and just set the window size, -d vice
versa.
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User Commands SCREEN(1)
help [-c class]
Not really a online help, but displays a help screen showing
you all the key bindings. The first pages list all the
internal commands followed by their current bindings. Sub-
sequent pages will display the custom commands, one command
per key. Press space when you're done reading each page, or
return to exit early. All other characters are ignored. If
the "-c" option is given, display all bound commands for the
specified command class. See also "DEFAULT KEY BINDINGS"
section.
history
Usually users work with a shell that allows easy access to
previous commands. For example csh has the command "!!" to
repeat the last command executed. Screen allows you to have
a primitive way of re-calling "the command that started
...": You just type the first letter of that command, then
hit `C-a {' and screen tries to find a previous line that
matches with the `prompt character' to the left of the cur-
sor. This line is pasted into this window's input queue.
Thus you have a crude command history (made up by the visi-
ble window and its scrollback buffer).
hstatus status
Change the window's hardstatus line to the string status.
idle [timeout [cmd args]]
Sets a command that is run after the specified number of
seconds inactivity is reached. This command will normally be
the "blanker" command to create a screen blanker, but it can
be any screen command. If no command is specified, only the
timeout is set. A timeout of zero (ot the special timeout
off) disables the timer. If no arguments are given, the
current settings are displayed.
ignorecase [on|off]
Tell screen to ignore the case of characters in searches.
Default is `off'.
info
Uses the message line to display some information about the
current window: the cursor position in the form "(col-
umn,row)" starting with "(1,1)", the terminal width and
height plus the size of the scrollback buffer in lines, like
in "(80,24)+50", the current state of window XON/XOFF flow
control is shown like this (See also section FLOW CONTROL):
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User Commands SCREEN(1)
+flow automatic flow control, currently on.
-flow automatic flow control, currently off.
+(+)flow flow control enabled. Agrees with automatic control.
-(+)flow flow control disabled. Disagrees with automatic control.
+(-)flow flow control enabled. Disagrees with automatic control.
-(-)flow flow control disabled. Agrees with automatic control.
The current line wrap setting (`+wrap' indicates enabled,
`-wrap' not) is also shown. The flags `ins', `org', `app',
`log', `mon' or `nored' are displayed when the window is in
insert mode, origin mode, application-keypad mode, has out-
put logging, activity monitoring or partial redraw enabled.
The currently active character set (G0, G1, G2, or G3) and
in square brackets the terminal character sets that are cur-
rently designated as G0 through G3 is shown. If the window
is in UTF-8 mode, the string "UTF-8" is shown instead.
Additional modes depending on the type of the window are
displayed at the end of the status line (See also chapter
"WINDOW TYPES").
If the state machine of the terminal emulator is in a non-
default state, the info line is started with a string iden-
tifying the current state.
For system information use the "time" command.
ins_reg [key]
No longer exists, use "paste" instead.
kill
Kill current window.
If there is an `exec' command running then it is killed.
Otherwise the process (shell) running in the window receives
a HANGUP condition, the window structure is removed and
screen (your display) switches to another window. When the
last window is destroyed, screen exits. After a kill screen
switches to the previously displayed window.
Note: Emacs users should keep this command in mind, when
killing a line. It is recommended not to use "C-a" as the
screen escape key or to rebind kill to "C-a K".
lastmsg
Redisplay the last contents of the message/status line.
Useful if you're typing when a message appears, because the
message goes away when you press a key (unless your terminal
has a hardware status line). Refer to the commands "msg-
wait" and "msgminwait" for fine tuning.
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User Commands SCREEN(1)
license
Display the disclaimer page. This is done whenever screen is
started without options, which should be often enough. See
also the "startup_message" command.
lockscreen
Lock this display. Call a screenlock program
(/local/bin/lck or /usr/bin/lock or a builtin if no other is
available). Screen does not accept any command keys until
this program terminates. Meanwhile processes in the windows
may continue, as the windows are in the `detached' state.
The screenlock program may be changed through the environ-
ment variable $LOCKPRG (which must be set in the shell from
which screen is started) and is executed with the user's uid
and gid.
Warning: When you leave other shells unlocked and you have
no password set on screen, the lock is void: One could eas-
ily re-attach from an unlocked shell. This feature should
rather be called `lockterminal'.
log [on|off]
Start/stop writing output of the current window to a file
"screenlog.n" in the window's default directory, where n is
the number of the current window. This filename can be
changed with the `logfile' command. If no parameter is
given, the state of logging is toggled. The session log is
appended to the previous contents of the file if it already
exists. The current contents and the contents of the scroll-
back history are not included in the session log. Default
is `off'.
logfile filename
logfile flush secs
Defines the name the logfiles will get. The default is
"screenlog.%n". The second form changes the number of sec-
onds screen will wait before flushing the logfile buffer to
the file-system. The default value is 10 seconds.
login [on|off]
Adds or removes the entry in the utmp database file for the
current window. This controls if the window is `logged in'.
When no parameter is given, the login state of the window is
toggled. Additionally to that toggle, it is convenient hav-
ing a `log in' and a `log out' key. E.g. `bind I login on'
and `bind O login off' will map these keys to be C-a I and
C-a O. The default setting (in config.h.in) should be "on"
for a screen that runs under suid-root. Use the "deflogin"
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User Commands SCREEN(1)
command to change the default login state for new windows.
Both commands are only present when screen has been compiled
with utmp support.
logtstamp [on|off]
logtstamp after [secs]
logtstamp string [string]
This command controls logfile time-stamp mechanism of
screen. If time-stamps are turned "on", screen adds a
string containing the current time to the logfile after two
minutes of inactivity. When output continues and more than
another two minutes have passed, a second time-stamp is
added to document the restart of the output. You can change
this timeout with the second form of the command. The third
form is used for customizing the time-stamp string (`--
%n:%t -- time-stamp -- %M/%d/%y %c:%s --\n' by default).
mapdefault
Tell screen that the next input character should only be
looked up in the default bindkey table. See also "bindkey".
mapnotnext
Like mapdefault, but don't even look in the default bindkey
table.
maptimeout [timo]
Set the inter-character timer for input sequence detection
to a timeout of timo ms. The default timeout is 300ms. Map-
timeout with no arguments shows the current setting. See
also "bindkey".
markkeys string
This is a method of changing the keymap used for copy/his-
tory mode. The string is made up of oldchar=newchar pairs
which are separated by `:'. Example: The string "B=^B:F=^F"
will change the keys `C-b' and `C-f' to the vi style binding
(scroll up/down fill page). This happens to be the default
binding for `B' and `F'. The command "markkeys
h=^B:l=^F:$=^E" would set the mode for an emacs-style bind-
ing. If your terminal sends characters, that cause you to
abort copy mode, then this command may help by binding these
characters to do nothing. The no-op character is `@' and is
used like this: "markkeys @=L=H" if you do not want to use
the `H' or `L' commands any longer. As shown in this exam-
ple, multiple keys can be assigned to one function in a sin-
gle statement.
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User Commands SCREEN(1)
maxwin num
Set the maximum window number screen will create. Doesn't
affect already existing windows. The number may only be
decreased.
meta
Insert the command character (C-a) in the current window's
input stream.
monitor [on|off]
Toggles activity monitoring of windows. When monitoring is
turned on and an affected window is switched into the back-
ground, you will receive the activity notification message
in the status line at the first sign of output and the win-
dow will also be marked with an `@' in the window-status
display. Monitoring is initially off for all windows.
msgminwait sec
Defines the time screen delays a new message when one mes-
sage is currently displayed. The default is 1 second.
msgwait sec
Defines the time a message is displayed if screen is not
disturbed by other activity. The default is 5 seconds.
multiuser on|off
Switch between singleuser and multiuser mode. Standard
screen operation is singleuser. In multiuser mode the com-
mands `acladd', `aclchg', `aclgrp' and `acldel' can be used
to enable (and disable) other users accessing this screen
session.
nethack on|off
Changes the kind of error messages used by screen. When you
are familiar with the game "nethack", you may enjoy the
nethack-style messages which will often blur the facts a
little, but are much funnier to read. Anyway, standard mes-
sages often tend to be unclear as well.
This option is only available if screen was compiled with
the NETHACK flag defined. The default setting is then deter-
mined by the presence of the environment variable $NETHACK-
OPTIONS.
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User Commands SCREEN(1)
next
Switch to the next window. This command can be used repeat-
edly to cycle through the list of windows.
nonblock [on|off|numsecs
Tell screen how to deal with user interfaces (displays) that
cease to accept output. This can happen if a user presses ^S
or a TCP/modem connection gets cut but no hangup is
received. If nonblock is off (this is the default) screen
waits until the display restarts to accept the output. If
nonblock is on, screen waits until the timeout is reached
(on is treated as 1s). If the display still doesn't receive
characters, screen will consider it "blocked" and stop send-
ing characters to it. If at some time it restarts to accept
characters, screen will unblock the display and redisplay
the updated window contents.
number [n]
Change the current windows number. If the given number n is
already used by another window, both windows exchange their
numbers. If no argument is specified, the current window
number (and title) is shown.
obuflimit [limit]
If the output buffer contains more bytes than the specified
limit, no more data will be read from the windows. The
default value is 256. If you have a fast display (like
xterm), you can set it to some higher value. If no argument
is specified, the current setting is displayed.
only
Kill all regions but the current one.
other
Switch to the window displayed previously. If this window
does no longer exist, other has the same effect as next.
partial on|off
Defines whether the display should be refreshed (as with
redisplay) after switching to the current window. This com-
mand only affects the current window. To immediately affect
all windows use the allpartial command. Default is `off',
of course. This default is fixed, as there is currently no
defpartial command.
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User Commands SCREEN(1)
password [crypted_pw]
Present a crypted password in your ".screenrc" file and
screen will ask for it, whenever someone attempts to resume
a detached. This is useful if you have privileged programs
running under screen and you want to protect your session
from reattach attempts by another user masquerading as your
uid (i.e. any superuser.) If no crypted password is speci-
fied, screen prompts twice for typing a password and places
its encryption in the paste buffer. Default is `none', this
disables password checking.
paste [registers [dest_reg]]
Write the (concatenated) contents of the specified registers
to the stdin queue of the current window. The register '.'
is treated as the paste buffer. If no parameter is given the
user is prompted for a single register to paste. The paste
buffer can be filled with the copy, history and readbuf com-
mands. Other registers can be filled with the register,
readreg and paste commands. If paste is called with a sec-
ond argument, the contents of the specified registers is
pasted into the named destination register rather than the
window. If '.' is used as the second argument, the displays
paste buffer is the destination. Note, that "paste" uses a
wide variety of resources: Whenever a second argument is
specified no current window is needed. When the source spec-
ification only contains registers (not the paste buffer)
then there need not be a current display (terminal
attached), as the registers are a global resource. The paste
buffer exists once for every user.
pastefont [on|off]
Tell screen to include font information in the paste buffer.
The default is not to do so. This command is especially use-
ful for multi character fonts like kanji.
pow_break
Reopen the window's terminal line and send a break condi-
tion. See `break'.
pow_detach
Power detach. Mainly the same as detach, but also sends a
HANGUP signal to the parent process of screen. CAUTION:
This will result in a logout, when screen was started from
your login shell.
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User Commands SCREEN(1)
pow_detach_msg [message]
The message specified here is output whenever a `Power
detach' was performed. It may be used as a replacement for a
logout message or to reset baud rate, etc. Without parame-
ter, the current message is shown.
prev
Switch to the window with the next lower number. This com-
mand can be used repeatedly to cycle through the list of
windows.
printcmd [cmd]
If cmd is not an empty string, screen will not use the ter-
minal capabilities "po/pf" if it detects an ansi print
sequence ESC [ 5 i, but pipe the output into cmd. This
should normally be a command like "lpr" or "'cat > /tmp/scr-
print'". printcmd without a command displays the current
setting. The ansi sequence ESC \ ends printing and closes
the pipe.
Warning: Be careful with this command! If other user have
write access to your terminal, they will be able to fire off
print commands.
process [key]
Stuff the contents of the specified register into screen's
input queue. If no argument is given you are prompted for a
register name. The text is parsed as if it had been typed in
from the user's keyboard. This command can be used to bind
multiple actions to a single key.
quit
Kill all windows and terminate screen. Note that on
VT100-style terminals the keys C-4 and C-\ are identical.
This makes the default bindings dangerous: Be careful not to
type C-a C-4 when selecting window no. 4. Use the empty
bind command (as in "bind '^\'") to remove a key binding.
readbuf [-e encoding] [filename]
Reads the contents of the specified file into the paste
buffer. You can tell screen the encoding of the file via
the -e option. If no file is specified, the screen-exchange
filename is used. See also "bufferfile" command.
readreg [-e encoding] [register [filename]]
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User Commands SCREEN(1)
Does one of two things, dependent on number of arguments:
with zero or one arguments it it duplicates the paste buffer
contents into the register specified or entered at the
prompt. With two arguments it reads the contents of the
named file into the register, just as readbuf reads the
screen-exchange file into the paste buffer. You can tell
screen the encoding of the file via the -e option. The fol-
lowing example will paste the system's password file into
the screen window (using register p, where a copy remains):
C-a : readreg p /etc/passwd
C-a : paste p
redisplay
Redisplay the current window. Needed to get a full redisplay
when in partial redraw mode.
register [-e encoding] key string
Save the specified string to the register key. The encoding
of the string can be specified via the -e option. See also
the "paste" command.
remove
Kill the current region. This is a no-op if there is only
one region.
removebuf
Unlinks the screen-exchange file used by the commands
"writebuf" and "readbuf".
reset
Reset the virtual terminal to its "power-on" values. Useful
when strange settings (like scroll regions or graphics char-
acter set) are left over from an application.
resize
Resize the current region. The space will be removed from or
added to the region below or if there's not enough space
from the region above.
resize +N increase current region height by N
resize -N decrease current region height by N
resize N set current region height to N
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User Commands SCREEN(1)
resize = make all windows equally high
resize max maximize current region height
resize min minimize current region height
screen [-opts] [n] [cmd [args]]
Establish a new window. The flow-control options (-f, -fn
and -fa), title (a.k.a.) option (-t), login options (-l and
-ln) , terminal type option (-T <term>), the all-capability-
flag (-a) and scrollback option (-h <num>) may be specified
with each command. The option (-M) turns monitoring on for
this window. The option (-L) turns output logging on for
this window. If an optional number n in the range 0..9 is
given, the window number n is assigned to the newly created
window (or, if this number is already in-use, the next
available number). If a command is specified after
"screen", this command (with the given arguments) is started
in the window; otherwise, a shell is created. Thus, if your
".screenrc" contains the lines
# example for .screenrc:
screen 1
screen -fn -t foobar -L 2 telnet foobar
screen creates a shell window (in window #1) and a window
with a TELNET connection to the machine foobar (with no
flow-control using the title "foobar" in window #2) and will
write a logfile ("screenlog.2") of the telnet session.
Note, that unlike previous versions of screen no additional
default window is created when "screen" commands are
included in your ".screenrc" file. When the initialization
is completed, screen switches to the last window specified
in your .screenrc file or, if none, opens a default window
#0.
Screen has built in some functionality of "cu" and "telnet".
See also chapter "WINDOW TYPES".
scrollback num
Set the size of the scrollback buffer for the current win-
dows to num lines. The default scrollback is 100 lines. See
also the "defscrollback" command and use "C-a i" to view the
current setting.
select [WindowID]
Switch to the window identified by WindowID. This can be a
prefix of a window title (alphanumeric window name) or a
window number. The parameter is optional and if omitted,
you get prompted for an identifier. When a new window is
SunOS 5.11 Last change: Aug 2003 40
User Commands SCREEN(1)
established, the first available number is assigned to this
window. Thus, the first window can be activated by "select
0". The number of windows is limited at compile-time by the
MAXWIN configuration parameter. There are two special Win-
dowIDs, "-" selects the internal blank window and "."
selects the current window. The latter is useful if used
with screen's "-X" option.
sessionname [name]
Rename the current session. Note, that for "screen -list"
the name shows up with the process-id prepended. If the
argument "name" is omitted, the name of this session is dis-
played. Caution: The $STY environment variables still
reflects the old name. This may result in confusion. The
default is constructed from the tty and host names.
setenv [var [string]]
Set the environment variable var to value string. If only
var is specified, the user will be prompted to enter a
value. If no parameters are specified, the user will be
prompted for both variable and value. The environment is
inherited by all subsequently forked shells.
setsid [on|off]
Normally screen uses different sessions and process groups
for the windows. If setsid is turned off, this is not done
anymore and all windows will be in the same process group as
the screen backend process. This also breaks job-control, so
be careful. The default is on, of course. This command is
probably useful only in rare circumstances.
shell command
Set the command to be used to create a new shell. This
overrides the value of the environment variable $SHELL.
This is useful if you'd like to run a tty-enhancer which is
expecting to execute the program specified in $SHELL. If the
command begins with a '-' character, the shell will be
started as a login-shell.
shelltitle title
Set the title for all shells created during startup or by
the C-A C-c command. For details about what a title is, see
the discussion entitled "TITLES (naming windows)".
silence [on|off|sec]
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User Commands SCREEN(1)
Toggles silence monitoring of windows. When silence is
turned on and an affected window is switched into the back-
ground, you will receive the silence notification message in
the status line after a specified period of inactivity
(silence). The default timeout can be changed with the
`silencewait' command or by specifying a number of seconds
instead of `on' or `off'. Silence is initially off for all
windows.
silencewait sec
Define the time that all windows monitored for silence
should wait before displaying a message. Default 30 seconds.
sleep num
This command will pause the execution of a .screenrc file
for num seconds. Keyboard activity will end the sleep. It
may be used to give users a chance to read the messages out-
put by "echo".
slowpaste msec
Define the speed at which text is inserted into the current
window by the paste ("C-a ]") command. If the slowpaste
value is nonzero text is written character by character.
screen will make a pause of msec milliseconds after each
single character write to allow the application to process
its input. Only use slowpaste if your underlying system
exposes flow control problems while pasting large amounts of
text.
source file
Read and execute commands from file file. Source commands
may be nested to a maximum recursion level of ten. If file
is not an absolute path and screen is already processing a
source command, the parent directory of the running source
command file is used to search for the new command file
before screen's current directory.
Note that termcap/terminfo/termcapinfo commands only work at
startup and reattach time, so they must be reached via the
default screenrc files to have an effect.
sorendition [attr [color]]
Change the way screen does highlighting for text marking and
printing messages. See the "STRING ESCAPES" chapter for the
syntax of the modifiers. The default is currently "=s dd"
(standout, default colors).
SunOS 5.11 Last change: Aug 2003 42
User Commands SCREEN(1)
split
Split the current region into two new ones. All regions on
the display are resized to make room for the new region. The
blank window is displayed on the new region. Use the
"remove" or the "only" command to delete regions.
startup_message on|off
Select whether you want to see the copyright notice during
startup. Default is `on', as you probably noticed.
stuff string
Stuff the string string in the input buffer of the current
window. This is like the "paste" command but with much less
overhead. You cannot paste large buffers with the "stuff"
command. It is most useful for key bindings. See also "bind-
key".
su [username [password [password2]]
Substitute the user of a display. The command prompts for
all parameters that are omitted. If passwords are specified
as parameters, they have to be specified un-crypted. The
first password is matched against the systems passwd data-
base, the second password is matched against the screen
password as set with the commands "acladd" or "password".
"Su" may be useful for the screen administrator to test
multiuser setups. When the identification fails, the user
has access to the commands available for user nobody. These
are "detach", "license", "version", "help" and "displays".
suspend
Suspend screen. The windows are in the `detached' state,
while screen is suspended. This feature relies on the shell
being able to do job control.
term term
In each window's environment screen opens, the $TERM vari-
able is set to "screen" by default. But when no description
for "screen" is installed in the local termcap or terminfo
data base, you set $TERM to - say - "vt100". This won't do
much harm, as screen is VT100/ANSI compatible. The use of
the "term" command is discouraged for non-default purpose.
That is, one may want to specify special $TERM settings
(e.g. vt100) for the next "screen rlogin othermachine" com-
mand. Use the command "screen -T vt100 rlogin othermachine"
rather than setting and resetting the default.
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User Commands SCREEN(1)
termcap term terminal-tweaks [window-tweaks]
terminfo term terminal-tweaks [window-tweaks]
termcapinfo term terminal-tweaks [window-tweaks]
Use this command to modify your terminal's termcap entry
without going through all the hassles involved in creating a
custom termcap entry. Plus, you can optionally customize
the termcap generated for the windows. You have to place
these commands in one of the screenrc startup files, as they
are meaningless once the terminal emulator is booted.
If your system works uses the terminfo database rather than
termcap, screen will understand the `terminfo' command,
which has the same effects as the `termcap' command. Two
separate commands are provided, as there are subtle syntac-
tic differences, e.g. when parameter interpolation (using
`%') is required. Note that termcap names of the capabili-
ties have to be used with the `terminfo' command.
In many cases, where the arguments are valid in both ter-
minfo and termcap syntax, you can use the command `termcap-
info', which is just a shorthand for a pair of `termcap' and
`terminfo' commands with identical arguments.
The first argument specifies which terminal(s) should be
affected by this definition. You can specify multiple ter-
minal names by separating them with `|'s. Use `*' to match
all terminals and `vt*' to match all terminals that begin
with "vt".
Each tweak argument contains one or more termcap defines
(separated by `:'s) to be inserted at the start of the
appropriate termcap entry, enhancing it or overriding exist-
ing values. The first tweak modifies your terminal's term-
cap, and contains definitions that your terminal uses to
perform certain functions. Specify a null string to leave
this unchanged (e.g. ''). The second (optional) tweak modi-
fies all the window termcaps, and should contain definitions
that screen understands (see the "VIRTUAL TERMINAL" sec-
tion).
Some examples:
termcap xterm* LP:hs@
Informs screen that all terminals that begin with `xterm'
have firm auto-margins that allow the last position on the
screen to be updated (LP), but they don't really have a sta-
tus line (no 'hs' - append `@' to turn entries off). Note
that we assume `LP' for all terminal names that start with
"vt", but only if you don't specify a termcap command for
that terminal.
termcap vt* LP
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User Commands SCREEN(1)
termcap vt102|vt220 Z0=\E[?3h:Z1=\E[?3l
Specifies the firm-margined `LP' capability for all termi-
nals that begin with `vt', and the second line will also add
the escape-sequences to switch into (Z0) and back out of
(Z1) 132-character-per-line mode if this is a VT102 or
VT220. (You must specify Z0 and Z1 in your termcap to use
the width-changing commands.)
termcap vt100 "" l0=PF1:l1=PF2:l2=PF3:l3=PF4
This leaves your vt100 termcap alone and adds the function
key labels to each window's termcap entry.
termcap h19|z19 am@:im=\E@:ei=\EO dc=\E[P
Takes a h19 or z19 termcap and turns off auto-margins (am@)
and enables the insert mode (im) and end-insert (ei) capa-
bilities (the `@' in the `im' string is after the `=', so it
is part of the string). Having the `im' and `ei' defini-
tions put into your terminal's termcap will cause screen to
automatically advertise the character-insert capability in
each window's termcap. Each window will also get the
delete-character capability (dc) added to its termcap, which
screen will translate into a line-update for the terminal
(we're pretending it doesn't support character deletion).
If you would like to fully specify each window's termcap
entry, you should instead set the $SCREENCAP variable prior
to running screen. See the discussion on the "VIRTUAL TER-
MINAL" in this manual, and the termcap(5) man page for more
information on termcap definitions.
time [string]
Uses the message line to display the time of day, the host
name, and the load averages over 1, 5, and 15 minutes (if
this is available on your system). For window specific
information use "info".
If a string is specified, it changes the format of the time
report like it is described in the "STRING ESCAPES" chapter.
Screen uses a default of "%c:%s %M %d %H%? %l%?".
title [windowtitle]
Set the name of the current window to windowtitle. If no
name is specified, screen prompts for one. This command was
known as `aka' in previous releases.
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unsetenv var
Unset an environment variable.
utf8 [on|off [on|off]]
Change the encoding used in the current window. If utf8 is
enabled, the strings sent to the window will be UTF-8
encoded and vice versa. Omitting the parameter toggles the
setting. If a second parameter is given, the display's
encoding is also changed (this should rather be done with
screen's "-U" option). See also "defutf8", which changes
the default setting of a new window.
vbell [on|off]
Sets the visual bell setting for this window. Omitting the
parameter toggles the setting. If vbell is switched on, but
your terminal does not support a visual bell, a `vbell-mes-
sage' is displayed in the status line when the bell charac-
ter (^G) is received. Visual bell support of a terminal is
defined by the termcap variable `vb' (terminfo: 'flash').
Per default, vbell is off, thus the audible bell is used.
See also `bell_msg'.
vbell_msg [message]
Sets the visual bell message. message is printed to the sta-
tus line if the window receives a bell character (^G), vbell
is set to "on", but the terminal does not support a visual
bell. The default message is "Wuff, Wuff!!". Without
parameter, the current message is shown.
vbellwait sec
Define a delay in seconds after each display of screen's
visual bell message. The default is 1 second.
verbose [on|off]
If verbose is switched on, the command name is echoed, when-
ever a window is created (or resurrected from zombie state).
Default is off. Without parameter, the current setting is
shown.
version
Print the current version and the compile date in the status
line.
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wall message
Write a message to all displays. The message will appear in
the terminal's status line.
width [-w|-d] [cols [lines]]
Toggle the window width between 80 and 132 columns or set it
to cols columns if an argument is specified. This requires
a capable terminal and the termcap entries "Z0" and "Z1".
See the "termcap" command for more information. You can also
specify a new height if you want to change both values. The
-w option tells screen to leave the display size unchanged
and just set the window size, -d vice versa.
windowlist [-b] [-m]
windowlist string [string]
windowlist title [title]
Display all windows in a table for visual window selection.
The desired window can be selected via the standard movement
keys (see the "copy" command) and activated via the return
key. If the -b option is given, screen will switch to the
blank window before presenting the list, so that the current
window is also selectable. The -m option changes the order
of the windows, instead of sorting by window numbers screen
uses its internal most-recently-used list.
The table format can be changed with the string and title
option, the title is displayed as table heading, while the
lines are made by using the string setting. The default set-
ting is "Num Name%=Flags" for the title and "%3n %t%=%f" for
the lines. See the "STRING ESCAPES" chapter for more codes
(e.g. color settings).
windows
Uses the message line to display a list of all the windows.
Each window is listed by number with the name of process
that has been started in the window (or its title); the cur-
rent window is marked with a `*'; the previous window is
marked with a `-'; all the windows that are "logged in" are
marked with a `$'; a background window that has received a
bell is marked with a `!'; a background window that is being
monitored and has had activity occur is marked with an `@';
a window which has output logging turned on is marked with
`(L)'; windows occupied by other users are marked with `&';
windows in the zombie state are marked with `Z'. If this
list is too long to fit on the terminal's status line only
the portion around the current window is displayed.
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wrap [on|off]
Sets the line-wrap setting for the current window. When
line-wrap is on, the second consecutive printable character
output at the last column of a line will wrap to the start
of the following line. As an added feature, backspace (^H)
will also wrap through the left margin to the previous line.
Default is `on'.
writebuf [-e encoding] [filename]
Writes the contents of the paste buffer to the specified
file, or the public accessible screen-exchange file if no
filename is given. This is thought of as a primitive means
of communication between screen users on the same host. If
an encoding is specified the paste buffer is recoded on the
fly to match the encoding. The filename can be set with the
bufferfile command and defaults to "/tmp/screen-exchange".
writelock [on|off|auto]
In addition to access control lists, not all users may be
able to write to the same window at once. Per default,
writelock is in `auto' mode and grants exclusive input per-
mission to the user who is the first to switch to the par-
ticular window. When he leaves the window, other users may
obtain the writelock (automatically). The writelock of the
current window is disabled by the command "writelock off".
If the user issues the command "writelock on" he keeps the
exclusive write permission while switching to other windows.
xoff
xon
Insert a CTRL-s / CTRL-q character to the stdin queue of the
current window.
zmodem [off|auto|catch|pass]
zmodem sendcmd [string]
zmodem recvcmd [string]
Define zmodem support for screen. Screen understands two
different modes when it detects a zmodem request: "pass" and
"catch". If the mode is set to "pass", screen will relay
all data to the attacher until the end of the transmission
is reached. In "catch" mode screen acts as a zmodem end-
point and starts the corresponding rz/sz commands. If the
mode is set to "auto", screen will use "catch" if the window
is a tty (e.g. a serial line), otherwise it will use "pass".
You can define the templates screen uses in "catch" mode via
the second and the third form.
Note also that this is an experimental feature.
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zombie [keys]
defzombie [keys]
Per default screen windows are removed from the window list
as soon as the windows process (e.g. shell) exits. When a
string of two keys is specified to the zombie command,
`dead' windows will remain in the list. The kill command
may be used to remove such a window. Pressing the first key
in the dead window has the same effect. When pressing the
second key, screen will attempt to resurrect the window. The
process that was initially running in the window will be
launched again. Calling zombie without parameters will clear
the zombie setting, thus making windows disappear when their
process exits.
As the zombie-setting is manipulated globally for all win-
dows, this command should only be called defzombie. Until we
need this as a per window setting, the commands zombie and
defzombie are synonymous.
THE MESSAGE LINE
Screen displays informational messages and other diagnostics
in a message line. While this line is distributed to appear
at the bottom of the screen, it can be defined to appear at
the top of the screen during compilation. If your terminal
has a status line defined in its termcap, screen will use
this for displaying its messages, otherwise a line of the
current screen will be temporarily overwritten and output
will be momentarily interrupted. The message line is auto-
matically removed after a few seconds delay, but it can also
be removed early (on terminals without a status line) by
beginning to type.
The message line facility can be used by an application run-
ning in the current window by means of the ANSI Privacy mes-
sage control sequence. For instance, from within the shell,
try something like:
echo '<esc>^Hello world from window '$WINDOW'<esc>\\'
where '<esc>' is an escape, '^' is a literal up-arrow, and
'\\' turns into a single backslash.
WINDOW TYPES
Screen provides three different window types. New windows
are created with screen's screen command (see also the entry
in chapter "CUSTOMIZATION"). The first parameter to the
screen command defines which type of window is created. The
different window types are all special cases of the normal
type. They have been added in order to allow screen to be
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used efficiently as a console multiplexer with 100 or more
windows.
o The normal window contains a shell (default, if no param-
eter is given) or any other system command that could be
executed from a shell (e.g. slogin, etc...)
o If a tty (character special device) name (e.g.
"/dev/ttya") is specified as the first parameter, then
the window is directly connected to this device. This
window type is similar to "screen cu -l /dev/ttya". Read
and write access is required on the device node, an
exclusive open is attempted on the node to mark the con-
nection line as busy. An optional parameter is allowed
consisting of a comma separated list of flags in the
notation used by stty(1):
<baud_rate>
Usually 300, 1200, 9600 or 19200. This affects
transmission as well as receive speed.
cs8 or cs7
Specify the transmission of eight (or seven) bits
per byte.
ixon or -ixon
Enables (or disables) software flow-control (CTRL-
S/CTRL-Q) for sending data.
ixoff or -ixon
Enables (or disables) software flow-control for
receiving data.
istrip or -istrip
Clear (or keep) the eight bit in each received byte.
You may want to specify as many of these options as
applicable. Unspecified options cause the terminal driver
to make up the parameter values of the connection. These
values are system dependant and may be in defaults or
values saved from a previous connection.
For tty windows, the info command shows some of the modem
control lines in the status line. These may include
`RTS', `CTS', 'DTR', `DSR', `CD' and more. This depends
on the available ioctl()'s and system header files as
well as the on the physical capabilities of the serial
board. Signals that are logical low (inactive) have
their name preceded by an exclamation mark (!), otherwise
the signal is logical high (active). Signals not
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supported by the hardware but available to the ioctl()
interface are usually shown low.
When the CLOCAL status bit is true, the whole set of
modem signals is placed inside curly braces ({ and }).
When the CRTSCTS or TIOCSOFTCAR bit is set, the signals
`CTS' or `CD' are shown in parenthesis, respectively.
For tty windows, the command break causes the Data trans-
mission line (TxD) to go low for a specified period of
time. This is expected to be interpreted as break signal
on the other side. No data is sent and no modem control
line is changed when a break is issued.
o If the first parameter is "//telnet", the second parame-
ter is expected to be a host name, and an optional third
parameter may specify a TCP port number (default decimal
23). Screen will connect to a server listening on the
remote host and use the telnet protocol to communicate
with that server.
For telnet windows, the command info shows details about
the connection in square brackets ([ and ]) at the end of
the status line.
b BINARY. The connection is in binary mode.
e ECHO. Local echo is disabled.
c SGA. The connection is in `character mode' (default:
`line mode').
t TTYPE. The terminal type has been requested by the
remote host. Screen sends the name "screen" unless
instructed otherwise (see also the command `term').
w NAWS. The remote site is notified about window size
changes.
f LFLOW. The remote host will send flow control infor-
mation. (Ignored at the moment.)
Additional flags for debugging are x, t and n (XDISPLOC,
TSPEED and NEWENV).
For telnet windows, the command break sends the telnet
code IAC BREAK (decimal 243) to the remote host.
This window type is only available if screen was compiled
with the BUILTIN_TELNET option defined.
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STRING ESCAPES
Screen provides an escape mechanism to insert information
like the current time into messages or file names. The
escape character is '%' with one exception: inside of a win-
dow's hardstatus '^%' ('^E') is used instead.
Here is the full list of supported escapes:
% the escape character itself
a either 'am' or 'pm'
A either 'AM' or 'PM'
c current time HH:MM in 24h format
C current time HH:MM in 12h format
d day number
D weekday name
f flags of the window
F sets %? to true if the window has the focus
h hardstatus of the window
H hostname of the system
l current load of the system
m month number
M month name
n window number
s seconds
t window title
u all other users on this window
w all window numbers and names. With '-' quailifier: up
to the current window; with '+' qualifier: starting
with the window after the current one.
W all window numbers and names except the current one
y last two digits of the year number
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Y full year number
? the part to the next '%?' is displayed only if a '%'
escape inside the part expands to a non-empty string
: else part of '%?'
= pad the string to the display's width (like TeX's
hfill). If a number is specified, pad to the percentage
of the window's width. A '0' qualifier tells screen to
treat the number as absolute position. You can specify
to pad relative to the last absolute pad position by
adding a '+' qualifier or to pad relative to the right
margin by using '-'. The padding truncates the string
if the specified position lies before the current posi-
tion. Add the 'L' qualifier to change this.
< same as '%=' but just do truncation, do not fill with
spaces
> mark the current text position for the next truncation.
When screen needs to do truncation, it tries to do it
in a way that the marked position gets moved to the
specified percentage of the output area. (The area
starts from the last absolute pad position and ends
with the position specified by the truncation opera-
tor.) The 'L' qualifier tells screen to mark the trun-
cated parts with '...'.
{ attribute/color modifier string terminated by the next
"}"
` Substitute with the output of a 'backtick' command. The
length qualifier is misused to identify one of the com-
mands.
The 'c' and 'C' escape may be qualified with a '0' to make
screen use zero instead of space as fill character. The '0'
qualifier also makes the '=' escape use absolute positions.
The 'n' and '=' escapes understand a length qualifier (e.g.
'%3n'), 'D' and 'M' can be prefixed with 'L' to generate
long names, 'w' and 'W' also show the window flags if 'L' is
given.
An attribute/color modifier is is used to change the
attributes or the color settings. Its format is "[attribute
modifier] [color description]". The attribute modifier must
be prefixed by a change type indicator if it can be confused
with a color desciption. The following change types are
known:
+ add the specified set to the current attributes
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- remove the set from the current attributes
! invert the set in the current attributes
= change the current attributes to the specified set
The attribute set can either be specified as a hexadecimal
number or a combination of the following letters:
d dim
u underline
b bold
r reverse
s standout
B blinking
Colors are coded either as a hexadecimal number or two let-
ters specifying the desired background and foreground color
(in that order). The following colors are known:
k black
r red
g green
y yellow
b blue
m magenta
c cyan
w white
d default color
. leave color unchanged
The capitalized versions of the letter specify bright col-
ors. You can also use the pseudo-color 'i' to set just the
brightness and leave the color unchanged.
A one digit/letter color description is treated as fore-
ground or background color dependant on the current
attributes: if reverse mode is set, the background color is
changed instead of the foreground color. If you don't like
this, prefix the color with a ".". If you want the same be-
haviour for two-letter color descriptions, also prefix them
with a ".".
As a special case, "%{-}" restores the attributes and colors
that were set before the last change was made (i.e. pops one
level of the color-change stack).
Examples: "" .nr )I G""n
set color to bright green
use bold red
clear all attributes, write in default color on yellow
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background.
%-Lw%{= BW}%50>%n%f* %t%{-}%+Lw%<
The available windows centered at the current window
and truncated to the available width. The current win-
dow is displayed white on blue. This can be used with
"hardstatus alwayslastline".
%?%F%{.R.}%?%3n %t%? [%h]%?
The window number and title and the window's hardsta-
tus, if one is set. Also use a red background if this
is the active focus. Useful for "caption string".
FLOW-CONTROL
Each window has a flow-control setting that determines how
screen deals with the XON and XOFF characters (and perhaps
the interrupt character). When flow-control is turned off,
screen ignores the XON and XOFF characters, which allows the
user to send them to the current program by simply typing
them (useful for the emacs editor, for instance). The
trade-off is that it will take longer for output from a
"normal" program to pause in response to an XOFF. With
flow-control turned on, XON and XOFF characters are used to
immediately pause the output of the current window. You can
still send these characters to the current program, but you
must use the appropriate two-character screen commands (typ-
ically "C-a q" (xon) and "C-a s" (xoff)). The xon/xoff com-
mands are also useful for typing C-s and C-q past a terminal
that intercepts these characters.
Each window has an initial flow-control value set with
either the -f option or the "defflow" .screenrc command. Per
default the windows are set to automatic flow-switching. It
can then be toggled between the three states 'fixed on',
'fixed off' and 'automatic' interactively with the "flow"
command bound to "C-a f".
The automatic flow-switching mode deals with flow control
using the TIOCPKT mode (like "rlogin" does). If the tty
driver does not support TIOCPKT, screen tries to find out
the right mode based on the current setting of the applica-
tion keypad - when it is enabled, flow-control is turned off
and visa versa. Of course, you can still manipulate flow-
control manually when needed.
If you're running with flow-control enabled and find that
pressing the interrupt key (usually C-c) does not interrupt
the display until another 6-8 lines have scrolled by, try
running screen with the "interrupt" option (add the "inter-
rupt" flag to the "flow" command in your .screenrc, or use
the -i command-line option). This causes the output that
screen has accumulated from the interrupted program to be
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flushed. One disadvantage is that the virtual terminal's
memory contains the non-flushed version of the output, which
in rare cases can cause minor inaccuracies in the output.
For example, if you switch screens and return, or update the
screen with "C-a l" you would see the version of the output
you would have gotten without "interrupt" being on. Also,
you might need to turn off flow-control (or use auto-flow
mode to turn it off automatically) when running a program
that expects you to type the interrupt character as input,
as it is possible to interrupt the output of the virtual
terminal to your physical terminal when flow-control is
enabled. If this happens, a simple refresh of the screen
with "C-a l" will restore it. Give each mode a try, and use
whichever mode you find more comfortable.
TITLES (naming windows)
You can customize each window's name in the window display
(viewed with the "windows" command (C-a w)) by setting it
with one of the title commands. Normally the name displayed
is the actual command name of the program created in the
window. However, it is sometimes useful to distinguish var-
ious programs of the same name or to change the name on-the-
fly to reflect the current state of the window.
The default name for all shell windows can be set with the
"shelltitle" command in the .screenrc file, while all other
windows are created with a "screen" command and thus can
have their name set with the -t option. Interactively,
there is the title-string escape-sequence (<esc>kname<esc>\)
and the "title" command (C-a A). The former can be output
from an application to control the window's name under soft-
ware control, and the latter will prompt for a name when
typed. You can also bind pre-defined names to keys with the
"title" command to set things quickly without prompting.
Finally, screen has a shell-specific heuristic that is
enabled by setting the window's name to "search|name" and
arranging to have a null title escape-sequence output as a
part of your prompt. The search portion specifies an end-
of-prompt search string, while the name portion specifies
the default shell name for the window. If the name ends in
a `:' screen will add what it believes to be the current
command running in the window to the end of the window's
shell name (e.g. "name:cmd"). Otherwise the current command
name supersedes the shell name while it is running.
Here's how it works: you must modify your shell prompt to
output a null title-escape-sequence (<esc>k<esc>\) as a part
of your prompt. The last part of your prompt must be the
same as the string you specified for the search portion of
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the title. Once this is set up, screen will use the title-
escape-sequence to clear the previous command name and get
ready for the next command. Then, when a newline is
received from the shell, a search is made for the end of the
prompt. If found, it will grab the first word after the
matched string and use it as the command name. If the com-
mand name begins with either '!', '%', or '^' screen will
use the first word on the following line (if found) in pref-
erence to the just-found name. This helps csh users get
better command names when using job control or history
recall commands.
Here's some .screenrc examples:
screen -t top 2 nice top
Adding this line to your .screenrc would start a nice-d ver-
sion of the "top" command in window 2 named "top" rather
than "nice".
shelltitle '> |csh'
screen 1
These commands would start a shell with the given shellti-
tle. The title specified is an auto-title that would expect
the prompt and the typed command to look something like the
following:
/usr/joe/src/dir> trn
(it looks after the '> ' for the command name). The window
status would show the name "trn" while the command was run-
ning, and revert to "csh" upon completion.
bind R screen -t '% |root:' su
Having this command in your .screenrc would bind the key
sequence "C-a R" to the "su" command and give it an auto-
title name of "root:". For this auto-title to work, the
screen could look something like this:
% !em
emacs file.c
Here the user typed the csh history command "!em" which ran
the previously entered "emacs" command. The window status
would show "root:emacs" during the execution of the command,
and revert to simply "root:" at its completion.
bind o title
bind E title ""
bind u title (unknown)
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The first binding doesn't have any arguments, so it would
prompt you for a title. when you type "C-a o". The second
binding would clear an auto-title's current setting (C-a E).
The third binding would set the current window's title to
"(unknown)" (C-a u).
One thing to keep in mind when adding a null title-escape-
sequence to your prompt is that some shells (like the csh)
count all the non-control characters as part of the prompt's
length. If these invisible characters aren't a multiple of
8 then backspacing over a tab will result in an incorrect
display. One way to get around this is to use a prompt like
this:
set prompt='^[[0000m^[k^[\% '
The escape-sequence "<esc>[0000m" not only normalizes the
character attributes, but all the zeros round the length of
the invisible characters up to 8. Bash users will probably
want to echo the escape sequence in the PROMPT_COMMAND:
PROMPT_COMMAND='echo -n -e "\033k\033\134"'
(I used "134" to output a `\' because of a bug in bash
v1.04).
THE VIRTUAL TERMINAL
Each window in a screen session emulates a VT100 terminal,
with some extra functions added. The VT100 emulator is hard-
coded, no other terminal types can be emulated.
Usually screen tries to emulate as much of the VT100/ANSI
standard as possible. But if your terminal lacks certain
capabilities, the emulation may not be complete. In these
cases screen has to tell the applications that some of the
features are missing. This is no problem on machines using
termcap, because screen can use the $TERMCAP variable to
customize the standard screen termcap.
But if you do a rlogin on another machine or your machine
supports only terminfo this method fails. Because of this,
screen offers a way to deal with these cases. Here is how
it works:
When screen tries to figure out a terminal name for itself,
it first looks for an entry named "screen.<term>", where
<term> is the contents of your $TERM variable. If no such
entry exists, screen tries "screen" (or "screen-w" if the
terminal is wide (132 cols or more)). If even this entry
cannot be found, "vt100" is used as a substitute.
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The idea is that if you have a terminal which doesn't sup-
port an important feature (e.g. delete char or clear to EOS)
you can build a new termcap/terminfo entry for screen (named
"screen.<dumbterm>") in which this capability has been dis-
abled. If this entry is installed on your machines you are
able to do a rlogin and still keep the correct termcap/ter-
minfo entry. The terminal name is put in the $TERM variable
of all new windows. Screen also sets the $TERMCAP variable
reflecting the capabilities of the virtual terminal emu-
lated. Notice that, however, on machines using the terminfo
database this variable has no effect. Furthermore, the
variable $WINDOW is set to the window number of each window.
The actual set of capabilities supported by the virtual ter-
minal depends on the capabilities supported by the physical
terminal. If, for instance, the physical terminal does not
support underscore mode, screen does not put the `us' and
`ue' capabilities into the window's $TERMCAP variable,
accordingly. However, a minimum number of capabilities must
be supported by a terminal in order to run screen; namely
scrolling, clear screen, and direct cursor addressing (in
addition, screen does not run on hardcopy terminals or on
terminals that over-strike).
Also, you can customize the $TERMCAP value used by screen by
using the "termcap" .screenrc command, or by defining the
variable $SCREENCAP prior to startup. When the is latter
defined, its value will be copied verbatim into each win-
dow's $TERMCAP variable. This can either be the full termi-
nal definition, or a filename where the terminal "screen"
(and/or "screen-w") is defined.
Note that screen honors the "terminfo" .screenrc command if
the system uses the terminfo database rather than termcap.
When the boolean `G0' capability is present in the termcap
entry for the terminal on which screen has been called, the
terminal emulation of screen supports multiple character
sets. This allows an application to make use of, for
instance, the VT100 graphics character set or national char-
acter sets. The following control functions from ISO 2022
are supported: lock shift G0 (SI), lock shift G1 (SO), lock
shift G2, lock shift G3, single shift G2, and single shift
G3. When a virtual terminal is created or reset, the ASCII
character set is designated as G0 through G3. When the `G0'
capability is present, screen evaluates the capabilities
`S0', `E0', and `C0' if present. `S0' is the sequence the
terminal uses to enable and start the graphics character set
rather than SI. `E0' is the corresponding replacement for
SO. `C0' gives a character by character translation string
that is used during semi-graphics mode. This string is built
like the `acsc' terminfo capability.
SunOS 5.11 Last change: Aug 2003 59
User Commands SCREEN(1)
When the `po' and `pf' capabilities are present in the ter-
minal's termcap entry, applications running in a screen win-
dow can send output to the printer port of the terminal.
This allows a user to have an application in one window
sending output to a printer connected to the terminal, while
all other windows are still active (the printer port is
enabled and disabled again for each chunk of output). As a
side-effect, programs running in different windows can send
output to the printer simultaneously. Data sent to the
printer is not displayed in the window. The info command
displays a line starting `PRIN' while the printer is active.
Screen maintains a hardstatus line for every window. If a
window gets selected, the display's hardstatus will be
updated to match the window's hardstatus line. If the dis-
play has no hardstatus the line will be displayed as a stan-
dard screen message. The hardstatus line can be changed
with the ANSI Application Program Command (APC):
"ESC_<string>ESC\". As a convenience for xterm users the
sequence "ESC]0..2;<string>^G" is also accepted.
Some capabilities are only put into the $TERMCAP variable of
the virtual terminal if they can be efficiently implemented
by the physical terminal. For instance, `dl' (delete line)
is only put into the $TERMCAP variable if the terminal sup-
ports either delete line itself or scrolling regions. Note
that this may provoke confusion, when the session is reat-
tached on a different terminal, as the value of $TERMCAP
cannot be modified by parent processes.
The "alternate screen" capability is not enabled by default.
Set the altscreen .screenrc command to enable it.
The following is a list of control sequences recognized by
screen. "(V)" and "(A)" indicate VT100-specific and ANSI-
or ISO-specific functions, respectively.
ESC E Next Line
ESC D Index
ESC M Reverse Index
ESC H Horizontal Tab Set
ESC Z Send VT100 Identification String
ESC 7 (V) Save Cursor and Attributes
ESC 8 (V) Restore Cursor and Attributes
ESC [s (A) Save Cursor and Attributes
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User Commands SCREEN(1)
ESC [u (A) Restore Cursor and Attributes
ESC c Reset to Initial State
ESC g Visual Bell
ESC Pn p Cursor Visibility (97801)
Pn = 6 Invisible
7 Visible
ESC = (V) Application Keypad Mode
ESC > (V) Numeric Keypad Mode
ESC # 8 (V) Fill Screen with E's
ESC \ (A) String Terminator
ESC ^ (A) Privacy Message String (Message
Line)
ESC ! Global Message String (Message
Line)
ESC k A.k.a. Definition String
ESC P (A) Device Control String. Outputs a
string directly to the host ter-
minal without interpretation.
ESC _ (A) Application Program Command
(Hardstatus)
ESC ] 0 ; string ^G (A) Operating System Command (Hard-
status, xterm title hack)
ESC ] 83 ; cmd ^G (A) Execute screen command. This only
works if multi-user support is
compiled into screen. The pseudo-
user ":window:" is used to check
the access control list. Use
"addacl :window: -rwx #?" to cre-
ate a user with no rights and
allow only the needed commands.
Control-N (A) Lock Shift G1 (SO)
Control-O (A) Lock Shift G0 (SI)
ESC n (A) Lock Shift G2
SunOS 5.11 Last change: Aug 2003 61
User Commands SCREEN(1)
ESC o (A) Lock Shift G3
ESC N (A) Single Shift G2
ESC O (A) Single Shift G3
ESC ( Pcs (A) Designate character set as G0
ESC ) Pcs (A) Designate character set as G1
ESC * Pcs (A) Designate character set as G2
ESC + Pcs (A) Designate character set as G3
ESC [ Pn ; Pn H Direct Cursor Addressing
ESC [ Pn ; Pn f same as above
ESC [ Pn J Erase in Display
Pn = None or 0 From Cursor to End of Screen
1 From Beginning of Screen to Cur-
sor
2 Entire Screen
ESC [ Pn K Erase in Line
Pn = None or 0 From Cursor to End of Line
1 From Beginning of Line to Cursor
2 Entire Line
ESC [ Pn X Erase character
ESC [ Pn A Cursor Up
ESC [ Pn B Cursor Down
ESC [ Pn C Cursor Right
ESC [ Pn D Cursor Left
ESC [ Pn E Cursor next line
ESC [ Pn F Cursor previous line
ESC [ Pn G Cursor horizontal position
ESC [ Pn ` same as above
SunOS 5.11 Last change: Aug 2003 62
User Commands SCREEN(1)
ESC [ Pn d Cursor vertical position
ESC [ Ps ;...; Ps m Select Graphic Rendition
Ps = None or 0 Default Rendition
1 Bold
2 (A) Faint
3 (A) Standout Mode (ANSI: Italicized)
4 Underlined
5 Blinking
7 Negative Image
22 (A) Normal Intensity
23 (A) Standout Mode off (ANSI: Itali-
cized off)
24 (A) Not Underlined
25 (A) Not Blinking
27 (A) Positive Image
30 (A) Foreground Black
31 (A) Foreground Red
32 (A) Foreground Green
33 (A) Foreground Yellow
34 (A) Foreground Blue
35 (A) Foreground Magenta
36 (A) Foreground Cyan
37 (A) Foreground White
39 (A) Foreground Default
40 (A) Background Black
...
49 (A) Background Default
SunOS 5.11 Last change: Aug 2003 63
User Commands SCREEN(1)
ESC [ Pn g Tab Clear
Pn = None or 0 Clear Tab at Current Position
3 Clear All Tabs
ESC [ Pn ; Pn r (V) Set Scrolling Region
ESC [ Pn I (A) Horizontal Tab
ESC [ Pn Z (A) Backward Tab
ESC [ Pn L (A) Insert Line
ESC [ Pn M (A) Delete Line
ESC [ Pn @ (A) Insert Character
ESC [ Pn P (A) Delete Character
ESC [ Pn S Scroll Scrolling Region Up
ESC [ Pn T Scroll Scrolling Region Down
ESC [ Pn ^ same as above
ESC [ Ps ;...; Ps h Set Mode
ESC [ Ps ;...; Ps l Reset Mode
Ps = 4 (A) Insert Mode
20 (A) Automatic Linefeed Mode
34 Normal Cursor Visibility
?1 (V) Application Cursor Keys
?3 (V) Change Terminal Width to 132 col-
umns
?5 (V) Reverse Video
?6 (V) Origin Mode
?7 (V) Wrap Mode
?9 X10 mouse tracking
?25 (V) Visible Cursor
?47 Alternate Screen (old xterm code)
SunOS 5.11 Last change: Aug 2003 64
User Commands SCREEN(1)
?1000 (V) VT200 mouse tracking
?1047 Alternate Screen (new xterm code)
?1049 Alternate Screen (new xterm code)
ESC [ 5 i (A) Start relay to printer (ANSI
Media Copy)
ESC [ 4 i (A) Stop relay to printer (ANSI Media
Copy)
ESC [ 8 ; Ph ; Pw t Resize the window to `Ph' lines
and `Pw' columns (SunView spe-
cial)
ESC [ c Send VT100 Identification String
ESC [ x Send Terminal Parameter Report
ESC [ > c Send VT220 Secondary Device
Attributes String
ESC [ 6 n Send Cursor Position Report
INPUT TRANSLATION
In order to do a full VT100 emulation screen has to detect
that a sequence of characters in the input stream was gener-
ated by a keypress on the user's keyboard and insert the
VT100 style escape sequence. Screen has a very flexible way
of doing this by making it possible to map arbitrary com-
mands on arbitrary sequences of characters. For standard
VT100 emulation the command will always insert a string in
the input buffer of the window (see also command stuff in
the command table). Because the sequences generated by a
keypress can change after a reattach from a different termi-
nal type, it is possible to bind commands to the termcap
name of the keys. Screen will insert the correct binding
after each reattach. See the bindkey command for further
details on the syntax and examples.
Here is the table of the default key bindings. (A) means
that the command is executed if the keyboard is switched
into application mode.
Key name Termcap name Command
______________________________________________________
Cursor up ku stuff \033[A
stuff \033OA (A)
Cursor down kd stuff \033[B
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User Commands SCREEN(1)
stuff \033OB (A)
Cursor right kr stuff \033[C
stuff \033OC (A)
Cursor left kl stuff \033[D
stuff \033OD (A)
Function key 0 k0 stuff \033[10~
Function key 1 k1 stuff \033OP
Function key 2 k2 stuff \033OQ
Function key 3 k3 stuff \033OR
Function key 4 k4 stuff \033OS
Function key 5 k5 stuff \033[15~
Function key 6 k6 stuff \033[17~
Function key 7 k7 stuff \033[18~
Function key 8 k8 stuff \033[19~
Function key 9 k9 stuff \033[20~
Function key 10 k; stuff \033[21~
Function key 11 F1 stuff \033[23~
Function key 12 F2 stuff \033[24~
Home kh stuff \033[1~
End kH stuff \033[4~
Insert kI stuff \033[2~
Delete kD stuff \033[3~
Page up kP stuff \033[5~
Page down kN stuff \033[6~
Keypad 0 f0 stuff 0
stuff \033Op (A)
Keypad 1 f1 stuff 1
stuff \033Oq (A)
Keypad 2 f2 stuff 2
stuff \033Or (A)
Keypad 3 f3 stuff 3
stuff \033Os (A)
Keypad 4 f4 stuff 4
stuff \033Ot (A)
Keypad 5 f5 stuff 5
stuff \033Ou (A)
Keypad 6 f6 stuff 6
stuff \033Ov (A)
Keypad 7 f7 stuff 7
stuff \033Ow (A)
Keypad 8 f8 stuff 8
stuff \033Ox (A)
Keypad 9 f9 stuff 9
stuff \033Oy (A)
Keypad + f+ stuff +
stuff \033Ok (A)
Keypad - f- stuff -
stuff \033Om (A)
Keypad * f* stuff *
stuff \033Oj (A)
Keypad / f/ stuff /
stuff \033Oo (A)
SunOS 5.11 Last change: Aug 2003 66
User Commands SCREEN(1)
Keypad = fq stuff =
stuff \033OX (A)
Keypad . f. stuff .
stuff \033On (A)
Keypad , f, stuff ,
stuff \033Ol (A)
Keypad enter fe stuff \015
stuff \033OM (A)
SPECIAL TERMINAL CAPABILITIES
The following table describes all terminal capabilities that
are recognized by screen and are not in the termcap(5) man-
ual. You can place these capabilities in your termcap
entries (in `/etc/termcap') or use them with the commands
`termcap', `terminfo' and `termcapinfo' in your screenrc
files. It is often not possible to place these capabilities
in the terminfo database.
LP (bool) Terminal has VT100 style margins (`magic mar-
gins'). Note that this capability is obsolete
because screen uses the standard 'xn' instead.
Z0 (str) Change width to 132 columns.
Z1 (str) Change width to 80 columns.
WS (str) Resize display. This capability has the desired
width and height as arguments. SunView(tm)
example: '\E[8;%d;%dt'.
NF (bool) Terminal doesn't need flow control. Send ^S and
^Q direct to the application. Same as 'flow
off'. The opposite of this capability is 'nx'.
G0 (bool) Terminal can deal with ISO 2022 font selection
sequences.
S0 (str) Switch charset 'G0' to the specified charset.
Default is '\E(%.'.
E0 (str) Switch charset 'G0' back to standard charset.
Default is '\E(B'.
C0 (str) Use the string as a conversion table for font
'0'. See the 'ac' capability for more details.
CS (str) Switch cursor-keys to application mode.
CE (str) Switch cursor-keys back to normal mode.
SunOS 5.11 Last change: Aug 2003 67
User Commands SCREEN(1)
AN (bool) Turn on autonuke. See the 'autonuke' command
for more details.
OL (num) Set the output buffer limit. See the 'obu-
flimit' command for more details.
KJ (str) Set the encoding of the terminal. See the
'encoding' command for valid encodings.
AF (str) Change character foreground color in an ANSI
conform way. This capability will almost always
be set to '\E[3%dm' ('\E[3%p1%dm' on terminfo
machines).
AB (str) Same as 'AF', but change background color.
AX (bool) Does understand ANSI set default fg/bg color
(\E[39m / \E[49m).
XC (str) Describe a translation of characters to strings
depending on the current font. More details
follow in the next section.
XT (bool) Terminal understands special xterm sequences
(OSC, mouse tracking).
C8 (bool) Terminal needs bold to display high-intensity
colors (e.g. Eterm).
TF (bool) Add missing capabilities to the termcap/info
entry. (Set by default).
CHARACTER TRANSLATION
Screen has a powerful mechanism to translate characters to
arbitrary strings depending on the current font and terminal
type. Use this feature if you want to work with a common
standard character set (say ISO8851-latin1) even on termi-
nals that scatter the more unusual characters over several
national language font pages.
Syntax:
XC=<charset-mapping>{,,<charset-mapping>}
<charset-mapping> := <designator><template>{,<mapping>}
<mapping> := <char-to-be-mapped><template-arg>
The things in braces may be repeated any number of times.
A <charset-mapping> tells screen how to map characters in
font <designator> ('B': Ascii, 'A': UK, 'K': german, etc.)
to strings. Every <mapping> describes to what string a sin-
gle character will be translated. A template mechanism is
SunOS 5.11 Last change: Aug 2003 68
User Commands SCREEN(1)
used, as most of the time the codes have a lot in common
(for example strings to switch to and from another charset).
Each occurrence of '%' in <template> gets substituted with
the <template-arg> specified together with the character. If
your strings are not similar at all, then use '%' as a tem-
plate and place the full string in <template-arg>. A quoting
mechanism was added to make it possible to use a real '%'.
The '\' character quotes the special characters '\', '%',
and ','.
Here is an example:
termcap hp700 'XC=B\E(K%\E(B,\304[,\326\\\\,\334]'
This tells screen how to translate ISOlatin1 (charset 'B')
upper case umlaut characters on a hp700 terminal that has a
german charset. '\304' gets translated to '\E(K[\E(B' and so
on. Note that this line gets parsed *three* times before
the internal lookup table is built, therefore a lot of quot-
ing is needed to create a single '\'.
Another extension was added to allow more emulation: If a
mapping translates the unquoted '%' char, it will be sent to
the terminal whenever screen switches to the corresponding
<designator>. In this special case the template is assumed
to be just '%' because the charset switch sequence and the
character mappings normally haven't much in common.
This example shows one use of the extension:
termcap xterm 'XC=K%,%\E(B,[\304,\\\\\326,]\334'
Here, a part of the german ('K') charset is emulated on an
xterm. If screen has to change to the 'K' charset, '\E(B'
will be sent to the terminal, i.e. the ASCII charset is used
instead. The template is just '%', so the mapping is
straightforward: '[' to '\304', '\' to '\326', and ']' to
'\334'.
ENVIRONMENT
COLUMNS Number of columns on the terminal (overrides
termcap entry).
HOME Directory in which to look for .screenrc.
LINES Number of lines on the terminal (overrides
termcap entry).
LOCKPRG Screen lock program.
NETHACKOPTIONS Turns on nethack option.
PATH Used for locating programs to run.
SCREENCAP For customizing a terminal's TERMCAP value.
SCREENDIR Alternate socket directory.
SCREENRC Alternate user screenrc file.
SunOS 5.11 Last change: Aug 2003 69
User Commands SCREEN(1)
SHELL Default shell program for opening windows
(default "/bin/sh").
STY Alternate socket name.
SYSSCREENRC Alternate system screenrc file.
TERM Terminal name.
TERMCAP Terminal description.
WINDOW Window number of a window (at creation time).
FILES
.../screen-4.?.??/etc/screenrc
.../screen-4.?.??/etc/etcscreenrc Examples in the screen
distribution package for
private and global ini-
tialization files.
$SYSSCREENRC
/usr/local/etc/screenrc screen initialization com-
mands
$SCREENRC
$HOME/.screenrc Read in after
/usr/local/etc/screenrc
$SCREENDIR/S-<login>
/local/screens/S-<login> Socket directories
(default)
/usr/tmp/screens/S-<login> Alternate socket directo-
ries.
<socket directory>/.termcap Written by the "termcap"
output function
/usr/tmp/screens/screen-exchange or
/tmp/screen-exchange screen `interprocess com-
munication buffer'
hardcopy.[0-9] Screen images created by
the hardcopy function
screenlog.[0-9] Output log files created
by the log function
/usr/lib/terminfo/?/* or
/etc/termcap Terminal capability data-
bases
/etc/utmp Login records
$LOCKPRG Program that locks a ter-
minal.
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following
attributes:
SunOS 5.11 Last change: Aug 2003 70
User Commands SCREEN(1)
+---------------+------------------+
|ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE |
+---------------+------------------+
|Availability | terminal/screen |
+---------------+------------------+
|Stability | Uncommitted |
SEE ALSO-------------+------------------+
termcap(5), utmp(5), vi(1), captoinfo(1), tic(1)
AUTHORS
Originally created by Oliver Laumann, this latest version
was produced by Wayne Davison, Juergen Weigert and Michael
Schroeder.
COPYLEFT
Copyright (C) 1993-2003
Juergen Weigert (jnweiger@immd4.informatik.uni-erlangen.de)
Michael Schroeder (mlschroe@immd4.informatik.uni-erlangen.de)
Copyright (C) 1987 Oliver Laumann
This program is free software; you can redistribute it
and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public
License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
version 2, or (at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be use-
ful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied war-
ranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PUR-
POSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public
License along with this program (see the file COPYING); if
not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple
Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA
CONTRIBUTORS
Ken Beal (kbeal@amber.ssd.csd.harris.com),
Rudolf Koenig (rfkoenig@immd4.informatik.uni-erlangen.de),
Toerless Eckert (eckert@immd4.informatik.uni-erlangen.de),
Wayne Davison (davison@borland.com),
Patrick Wolfe (pat@kai.com, kailand!pat),
Bart Schaefer (schaefer@cse.ogi.edu),
Nathan Glasser (nathan@brokaw.lcs.mit.edu),
Larry W. Virden (lvirden@cas.org),
Howard Chu (hyc@hanauma.jpl.nasa.gov),
Tim MacKenzie (tym@dibbler.cs.monash.edu.au),
Markku Jarvinen (mta@{cc,cs,ee}.tut.fi),
Marc Boucher (marc@CAM.ORG),
Doug Siebert (dsiebert@isca.uiowa.edu),
Ken Stillson (stillson@tsfsrv.mitre.org),
Ian Frechett (frechett@spot.Colorado.EDU),
Brian Koehmstedt (bpk@gnu.ai.mit.edu),
Don Smith (djs6015@ultb.isc.rit.edu),
Frank van der Linden (vdlinden@fwi.uva.nl),
SunOS 5.11 Last change: Aug 2003 71
User Commands SCREEN(1)
Martin Schweikert (schweik@cpp.ob.open.de),
David Vrona (dave@sashimi.lcu.com),
E. Tye McQueen (tye%spillman.UUCP@uunet.uu.net),
Matthew Green (mrg@eterna.com.au),
Christopher Williams (cgw@pobox.com),
Matt Mosley (mattm@access.digex.net),
Gregory Neil Shapiro (gshapiro@wpi.WPI.EDU),
Johannes Zellner (johannes@zellner.org),
Pablo Averbuj (pablo@averbuj.com).
VERSION
This is version 4.0.2. Its roots are a merge of a custom
version 2.3PR7 by Wayne Davison and several enhancements to
Oliver Laumann's version 2.0. Note that all versions num-
bered 2.x are copyright by Oliver Laumann.
AVAILABILITY
The latest official release of screen available via anony-
mous ftp from gnudist.gnu.org, nic.funet.fi or any other GNU
distribution site. The home site of screen is ftp.uni-erlan-
gen.de, in the directory pub/utilities/screen. The subdirec-
tory `private' contains the latest beta testing release. If
you want to help, send a note to screen@uni-erlangen.de.
BUGS
o `dm' (delete mode) and `xs' are not handled correctly
(they are ignored). `xn' is treated as a magic-margin
indicator.
o Screen has no clue about double-high or double-wide char-
acters. But this is the only area where vttest is
allowed to fail.
o It is not possible to change the environment variable
$TERMCAP when reattaching under a different terminal
type.
o The support of terminfo based systems is very limited.
Adding extra capabilities to $TERMCAP may not have any
effects.
o Screen does not make use of hardware tabs.
o Screen must be installed as set-uid with owner root on
most systems in order to be able to correctly change the
owner of the tty device file for each window. Special
permission may also be required to write the file
"/etc/utmp".
o Entries in "/etc/utmp" are not removed when screen is
killed with SIGKILL. This will cause some programs (like
SunOS 5.11 Last change: Aug 2003 72
User Commands SCREEN(1)
"w" or "rwho") to advertise that a user is logged on who
really isn't.
o Screen may give a strange warning when your tty has no
utmp entry.
o When the modem line was hung up, screen may not automati-
cally detach (or quit) unless the device driver is con-
figured to send a HANGUP signal. To detach a screen ses-
sion use the -D or -d command line option.
o If a password is set, the command line options -d and -D
still detach a session without asking.
o Both "breaktype" and "defbreaktype" change the break gen-
erating method used by all terminal devices. The first
should change a window specific setting, where the latter
should change only the default for new windows.
o When attaching to a multiuser session, the user's
.screenrc file is not sourced. Each user's personal set-
tings have to be included in the .screenrc file from
which the session is booted, or have to be changed manu-
ally.
o A weird imagination is most useful to gain full advantage
of all the features.
o Send bug-reports, fixes, enhancements, t-shirts, money,
beer & pizza to screen@uni-erlangen.de.
NOTES
This software was built from source available at
https://java.net/projects/solaris-userland. The original
community source was downloaded from
http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/screen/screen-4.0.3.tar.gz
Further information about this software can be found on the
open source community website at http://www.gnu.org/soft-
ware/screen/.
SunOS 5.11 Last change: Aug 2003 73