1. Installing Linux Screen Command
The screen comes preinstalled on some of the popular distributions. You can check if it is installed on your server using the following command
screen -v
Screen Command Example in Linux
If you do not have a screen to the VPS, you can easily install it using the package manager provided by the OS.
2. Install Linux Screen Command – CentOS/RedHat/Fedora
yum -y install screen
Ubuntu/Debian
apt-get -y install screen
3. How to start a Linux Screen Command session
You can start screen by typing ‘screen’ at the command prompt and a new screen session will be started which looks the same as the command prompt
screen
It is a good practice to start screen sessions with descriptive names so you can easily remember which process is running in the session. To create a new session with a session name run the following command
screen -S name
and replace ‘name’ with a meaningful name for your session.
4. Detach from Linux Screen Command Session
To detach from the current screen session you can press ‘Ctrl-A‘ and ‘d‘ on your keyboard. All screen sessions will still be active and you can re-attach to them at any time later.
5. Reattach to Linux Screen Command
If you have detached from a session or your connection is interrupted for some reason, you can easily re-attach by executing the following command:
screen -r
If you have multiple screen sessions you can list them with ‘ls’
screen -ls
There are screens on:
7880.session (Detached)
7934.session2 (Detached)
7907.session1 (Detached)
3 Sockets in /var/run/screen/S-root.
linux screen command list
linux screen command list
In our example, we have three active screen sessions. So, if you want to restore the session ‘session2’ you can execute
screen -r 7934
or you can use the screen name
screen -r -S session2
6. Terminate Linux Screen Command Session
There are several ways to terminate the screen session. You can do it by pressing ‘Ctrl‘ + ‘d‘ on your keyboard or use the ‘exit’ command-line command.
To see all the useful features of the screen command you can check the screen’s man page.
man screen
NAME
screen – screen manager with VT100/ANSI terminal emulation
SYNOPSIS
screen [ -options ] [ cmd [ args ] ]
screen -r [[pid.]tty[.host]]
screen -r sessionowner/[[pid.]tty[.host]]