Enable Screen Tabs Name

This introduction will outline specifically on how to show tab name on an active screen

Linux screen is a very powerful tool for sysadmin when you need to run a long running process without kept your computer connecting to the remote server

here is the deatils introductions about Screen

There is two ways to display tab name

• Configure .screenrc

  Add this to your .screenrc file:

  caption always "%{= kw}%-w%{= BW}%n %t%{-}%+w %-= @%H - %LD %d %LM - %c"

  After you restart your screen, there’s a status bar below showing the current tab name, and as a bonus your current host name and time – modify them away at will if you so wish.

  To rename a tab, press ctrl+a A and give it a new name.

• Operate at existing screen

  Sometimes you create a screen but havn’t enable captions, it’s not convient to switch among tabs, you can run following commands to enable screen tabs

  • First you need to detach current screen
    • ctrl + a +d
    • screen -S <YOUR SCREEN NAME HERE> -X caption always "%{= kw}%-w%{= BW}%n %t%{-}%+w %-= @%H - %LD %d %LM - %c"
    • Attach to your screen
      • screen -r <YOUR SCREEN NAME HERE>

  Now your screen will be looks like this