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Re: [LUG] ssh and programs (not) continuing to run

 

On 26 Apr, 2011, at 5:26 pm, Simon Waters wrote:

"screen" is also worth a mention as a simple way of preserving interactive
state, although I hate it myself

Seems an odd thing to say, given the following. Care to expand?

and only used it in anger for running UML
virtual servers where the "console" session was in "screen" on the host server, so I could reconnect if and when I broke networking in the virtual
servers.

I swear by screen and live in it almost as much as I live in emacs. First thing I do on every machine -- linux, Mac or Cygwin -- is set up ssh keys, screen, and a few choice shell scripts for seamless integration.

Thereafter, on *any* machine I am "on" *every* machine, with session state intact on each machine whenever I change physical machine, and with connections made (and re-established) transparently and effortlessly.

When network failure and physical location change no longer disrupt your work, you find you are in an altered state of machine consciousness. My virtual environment is persistent and ubiquitous and consists of a virtual cluster of many machines in many locations, which I mainly use to disperse risk by replicating important data and code using distributed version control (not a replacement for a proper backup strategy, just an adjunct) and secondly to optimize resources (bandwidth, CPU, storage, etc).

Here's where I started with screen:

http://bc.tech.coop/blog/071001.html

I have a fairly complex .screenrc which advanced users might want to see. Its hardstatus is based on the hardstatus in TFA, and includes window tabs, host, and second-by-second date and time. With screen session hardstatuses nested inside screen windows, I can always tell at a glance "where" I am, and with screen command-key cascades it's easy to target commands to the right layer.

'tmux' looks like a good up-and-coming challenger to screen. Its recent competitive appearance drove screen's developers to release a feature that had been pending for years.

--
Phil Hudson                  http://hudson-it.no-ip.biz
@UWascalWabbit                 PGP/GnuPG ID: 0x887DCA63


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