# How to use Screen on Linux to Detach and Reattach your Terminal

By Zubair Ahmed · Published 2020-11-05
Source: https://www.grizzlybit.dev/blog/how-to-use-screen-on-linux-to-detach-and-reattach-your-terminal

## Why Screen?

`screen` is this awesome software tool in Linux that provides you the ability to spring-up and use multiple shell sessions from a single ssh session. Screen essentially acts as a terminal multiplexer emulator that is packed with features (just look at the size of its `man` page, you'll know 😝)

A few key benefits of `screen` are:

- Leverage the use of multiplexer to create multiple shell windows from a single shell SSH session
- Re-establish access and control of the shell session through network disruptions
- Ability to disconnect and re-connect to a shell session from any system
- Ability to daemonize a session to keep a long-running process and attach to the session whenever needed

Honestly, the above ☝ are just a few examples. There are many

## How to install it?

It is most likely already have `screen` installed on your system. To check if you already have it installed you can use the `which` command to inspect the path of `screen` on your system.

```bash
which screen
#output
/usr/bin/screen
```

If you don't have `screen`, then you can easily install it using `yum` on CentOS

```bash
sudo yum install screen
```

or on Debian using `apt` like

```bash
sudo apt install screen
```

or on Manjaro using `pacman` like

```bash
sudo pacman -Sy screen
```

or on Fedora using `dnf` like

```bash
sudo dnf install screen
```

Once, you have successfully installed it you can check using the `which` command again. Alternatively, you can run the `screen` command

```bash
screen
```

It should prompt you a new window within the screen

![Screen License](https://www.grizzlybit.dev/blog/how-to-use-screen-on-linux-to-detach-and-reattach-your-terminal/screen-license-screen.png)

## How to use it?

## Using Sessions

To get started just use your command line and simply type as shown below:

```bash
screen
```

You'll see a page of legal information. You can now press Space or Enter to go to the command prompt.

🤔 Hmmm, you seem to have returned to you your normal session and nothing seems to have happened. But surprise-surprise, you're now running a shell inside your `screen` multiplexer emulator.

Let's get testing by running a long-running script on the session. Let's download some bug file

```bash
wget https://download.geofabrik.de/europe-latest.osm.pbf
```

Now our download will begin, and the progress will be display on the screen.

![Screen Session](https://www.grizzlybit.dev/blog/how-to-use-screen-on-linux-to-detach-and-reattach-your-terminal/screen-session-attached.png)

Now, we are going to detach from the session using **Clrl+A** and then press **d**.

![Screen Detached](https://www.grizzlybit.dev/blog/how-to-use-screen-on-linux-to-detach-and-reattach-your-terminal/screen-session-detached.png)

now lets list out the `screen` windows using the `-ls` (list) option

![Screen session list](https://www.grizzlybit.dev/blog/how-to-use-screen-on-linux-to-detach-and-reattach-your-terminal/screen-session-list.png)

We are can use the `-r` (reattach) option and the number of the session to reattach to it

![Screen session reattached](https://www.grizzlybit.dev/blog/how-to-use-screen-on-linux-to-detach-and-reattach-your-terminal/screen-session-reattach.png)

And just like that, you're back working on your download. 😄

![Screen session reattached result](https://www.grizzlybit.dev/blog/how-to-use-screen-on-linux-to-detach-and-reattach-your-terminal/screen-session-reattach-result.png)

You can always exit from a screen session by just typing the `exit` command as you would do in a typical session.

```bash
exit
```

If you're not comfortable using numbered sessions and would like some semantic name for them you can do use using the `-S` (session name) option.

```bash
screen -S bigassDownload
```

Appropriately our command to reattach will now be leveraging the name of the session that we had quite some creatively given

```bash
screen -r bigassDownload
```

## Recap

- On the terminal, type `screen`
- Use **Ctrl+a** + **d** to detach from the screen session
- Reattach to screen session by typing `screen -r <ID>`
- Start a named session using `screen -S <name>`
- Reattach to a named screen session by typing `screen -r <name>`

## Conclusion

My fellow coders, programmers, and wannabe hackers; we just learn how to use `screen` on Linux. Now you can start using the utility and go-crazy impressing people with your nifty terminal skills.

You can also personalize your `screen` utility by using a `.screenrc` file. To learn about the various customization options you can follow the [Screen User's Manual](https://www.gnu.org/software/screen/manual/screen.html).

Happy Grizzly Coding! 🐻