Screen

screen is a "terminal multiplexer", it enables a number of terminals (or windows) to be accessed and controlled from a single terminal. screen is a great way to save an interactive session between connections to oscar. You can reconnect to the session from anywhere!

Screen commands

Common commands are:

  • start a new screen session with session name: screen -S <name>

  • list running sessions/screens: screen -ls

  • attach to session by name: screen -r <name>

  • detach: Ctrl+a d

  • detach and logout (quick exit): Ctrl+a d d

  • kill a screen session: screen -XS session_name quit

Reconnecting to your screen session

There are several login nodes in Oscar, and the node from where you launched screen matters! That is, you can only reconnect from the login node in which you launched screen from

In order to reconnect to a running screen session, you need to be connected to the same login node that you launched your screen session from. In order to locate and identify your screen sessions correctly, we recommed the following:

  • Create a directory to store the information of your screen sessions. You only need do this once.

mkdir ~/.screen && chmod 700 ~/.screen
  • Put the following line into your /.bashrc. This tells the screen program to save the information of your screen sessions in the directory created in the previous step . This allows you to query your screen sessions across different login nodes. To make this change effective in your current sessions, you need run 'source /.bashrc' in each of your current session . However, you do not need to run 'source /bashrc' in your new sessions.

export SCREENDIR=$HOME/.screen
  • Name your new screen session using the name of the login node. For instance, start your screen with a commnd similar to

screen -S experiment1-login003

Last updated