
An easy way to use GNU Screen over SSH - Anon84
http://www.earthinfo.org/an-easy-way-to-use-gnu-screen-over-ssh/
======
bcl
I think you guys are being a bit harsh on this article. Its not as if it was
saying "ssh to remote and run screen" was something new. It does provide some
useful hints on .screenrc setup and while running a script to connect to the
remote screen may not be for everyone it is useful.

------
swombat
This is all pretty basic... not sure why this is news-worthy.

And, as thras pointed out, it's needlessly complicated. All you need to do is:

ssh yourserver -t "screen -D -RR"

And you'll have a new screen session, or reattach to your old screen session,
however you left it set up.

If you're on a mac and you want to set up a different background colour for
each server, check out my tutorial at: <http://www.swombat.com/setting-up-
terminalapp-with-tr-0>

~~~
Locke
Indeed, it is really basic. I guess I could see value in aliasing that to save
typing. In my case, I have a "Screen" menu in fvwm with menu entries like
this:

    
    
        + %terminal.png%"caspian" Exec exec xterm -geometry 80x25+30-28 -T "screen : caspian" -e ssh -t eki@caspian.vying.org screen -x -R
    

I have menus for local screens as well, with entries like:

    
    
        + %terminal.png%"dorothy" Exec exec xterm -geometry 80x37+30+60 -T "screen : dorothy" -e screen -x -c $HOME/.screenrc-dorothy -R dorothy
    

I usually create a new screen config for each project that launches shells in
the right directories, etc. For example, here's my .screenrc-dorothy:

    
    
        chdir $HOME/projects/dorothy/lib/dorothy
        screen -t lib           1 zsh
    
        chdir $HOME/projects/dorothy/test/dorothy
        screen -t test          2 zsh
    
        chdir $HOME/projects/dorothy/ext
        screen -t ext           3 zsh
    
        chdir $HOME/projects/dorothy
        screen -t irb           4 zsh
        at        irb#            eval 'stuff "irb -r dorothy\015"'
    
        chdir $HOME/projects/dorothy
        screen -t zsh           0 zsh
    
        hardstatus alwayslastline "%{rk}%H %{gk}%c %{yk}%M%d %{wk}%?%-Lw%?%{bw}%n*%f %t%?(%u)%?%{wk}%?%+Lw%?"
    

That gives me shells in the directories I'm likely to be working from, and
starts an irb session in another shell.

I guess this is only newsworthy if you're not the type to customize your
environment to your liking. Well, that and the fact that gnu screen is
somewhat difficult to learn and researching it is a pain because "screen" is
such a poor, generic name for a project.

I'd love to see this turn into a thread of neat things that can be done with
gnu screen.

~~~
pyr3
> researching it is a pain because "screen" is such a poor, generic name for a
> project.

Really. I find it pretty easy to use search terms like "gnu screen" or
"screenrc" to get lots of results in Google...

------
philh
I find the main problem with running screen over ssh is that the remote screen
doesn't interact well with the local one. I tend to just have multiple local
ssh sessions and not run screen remotely, but it isn't ideal.

~~~
kaens
The solution to this is to use a different escape sequence than C-a on the
remote machine, or on your local machine.

I put escape ^Ww in my local .screenrc, and this alleviates most if not all
the problems with running screen on both the local and remote machines.

------
thras
Was there a hard way? I just ssh to the machine and type 'screen -Rd'

The article seems like needless complication.

~~~
w1ntermute
If I understand correctly, it is newsworthy because it provides a method by
which you can automatically go to a particular session and/or shell in that
session by running just one command on your local machine in which you specify
the Screen title of that session/shell.

