My .screenrc

I am a huge fan of screen. It’s indispensable for working on a Unix host via SSH. It lets me have multiple terminals (screens) up at a time. There are dudes that use screen to split their terminals into multiple views, like a tiling window manager, but for the command line.

My needs are not nearly as sophisticated, since I mostly use putty to connect to Linux servers from Windows.

I use 4 special keys:
F9 to detach from the screen session. This is leaves your session running in the background. I mostly use this to idle in IRC. Once detached from your session you can view your active screen session by typing:
screen -ls

Which will return something like this:

user@localhost:~$ screen -ls
There is a screen on:
2030.pts-0.localhost (05/25/2016 06:45:51 PM) (Detached)
1 Socket in /var/run/screen/S-user.


To reconnect to a detached screen session, type
screen -r 2030.pts-0.localhost

If the session is in use elsewhere, use the -D option:
screen -D 2030.pts-0.localhost

This will disconnect the screen session that’s in use, log off the SSH session that initiated it, and then reattach the active SSH session to the screen session.

Or, if you’re like me and never have any idea if you have a running a screen or not, just combine -D and -R and quit worrying about sockets and get on with your life:
screen -DR

And, if you are also like me and forget the switches for screen, just use the alias command in your .bashrc to have screen do -DR every time:
alias screen = 'screen -DR'

F10 to open a new terminal in screen.

This option lets you have multiple terminals in the same SSH session. This is handy for having a full screen app (like irssi) in one term, and one or more additional terms for running other commands. To close a terminal, type
exit

F11 and F12 to switch terminals
When you have multiple terminals open you can navigate them, from left to right with the F11 key to select the terminal to the right, and the F12 key to select the terminal to the left.

The File
To use this file, simply paste the contents below into a file called .screenrc in your home directory. So here it is, the .screenrc, that I have been using for years:

startup_message off

# Window list at the bottom.
# I got the long line of vars from https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=423481#p423481
hardstatus alwayslastline
hardstatus string "%{.kW}%-w%{.W}%n %t%{-}%{=b kw}%?%+w%? %=%c %d/%m/%Y" #B&W & date&time

# From Stephen Shirley
# Don't block command output if the terminal stops responding
# (like if the ssh connection times out for example).
nonblock on

# Allow editors etc. to restore display on exit
# rather than leaving existing text in place
altscreen on

# bind F9 to detach screen session (to background)
bindkey -k k9 detach

# bind F10 to create a new screen
bindkey -k k; screen

# Bind F11 and F12 (NOT F1 and F2) to previous and next screen window
bindkey -k F1 prev
bindkey -k F2 next