GNU Screen Cheat Sheet

screen.md

GNU Screen Cheat Sheet

Basics

Remember: in screen, all screen-related commands are prefixed by ctr-a (which means pressing ctrl and a together, and then pressing the followup character).

The 4 most basic commands (if you're new to screen, learn only these):

• ctrl-a c -> create­ate new window
• ctrl-a ctrl-a -> toggle between latest windows
• ctrl-a " -> show all windows and choose using up/down arrows
• ctrl-a d -> detach window

Less useful basics:

• ctrl-a A -> set widow name
• ctrl-a w -> show all window
• ctrl-a 1|2|3|… -> switch to window n
• ctrl-a ? -> help
• ctrl-a [ -> start copy / scroll up; to copy: (1) move cursor to the start of the region to-be-copied; (2) press ENTER or space to start selecting chars and move towards the end of the region to-be-copied; (3) press ENTER / space to copy the selected chars to the buffer
• ctrl-a ] -> paste from buffer

Starting screen

• screen –DR -> list of detached screen
• screen –r PID -> attach detached screen session (same with -x instead of -r)
• screen –dmS MySes­sion -> start a detached screen session
• screen –r MySes­sion -> attach screen session with name MySession

Advanced

• ctrl a S -> create vertically split screen
• ctrl a TAB -> switch between split screens
• ctrl a Q -> Kill all regions but the current one.
• ctrl a X -> remove active window from split screen
• ctrl a O -> logout active window (disable output)
• ctrl a I -> login active window (enable output)