Hey,
I've generally only run a single screen process on any one host, but
recently I've started to run a couple at home, as I'm no longer running my
IRC sessions from a remote machine. The problem with multiple screen
sessions is that when you want to reconnect to them, you have to provide the
process/socket ID which is garbage to the brain. For instance:
$ screen -dr
There are several suitable screens on:
24349.pts-9.lazarus (Attached)
31572.pts-12.lazarus (Attached)
Type "screen [-d] -r [pid.]tty.host" to resume one of them.
Not only do they mean nothing, but it's extra work having to specify which
one I want to connect to. So, I started playing around with named sessions.
If you pass the -S <name> parameters, you can reconnect to that session
using screen -dr <name>. Tasty. But that's still too much work for the lazy
admin in my black, charred soul. Enter screen-return!
#!/bin/sh
ME=$(basename $0)
screen -dr $ME || screen -S $ME -p 0 $(find /bin /usr/bin -name $ME -print | head -1)
* basename $0 returns the filename component of the script itself, so the
idea is that you create command name symlinks to screen-return; so if I
had a symlink "mutt" pointing to screen return, ME would be "mutt".
* The first screen -dr will attempt to reconnect to the screen named after
"ME" (the command).
* If it fails (|| means "OR"), the script starts a new screen session
named after "ME", switches to the first window (-p 0), and runs the real
"ME" command (currently done by a dumb search on /bin and /usr/bin). You
can't just run the command, because this script is most likely in your
path. :-)
So now, when I start a new terminal or log into a host, I just run the
command I care about, and if that means it needs to reconnect to a screen
for me to get it, that's what it does. Rocking! My main uses for this are
apps that I wouldn't run two copies of, such as mutt and irssi.
- Jeff
--
GVADEC 2004: Kristiansand, Norway http://2004.guadec.org/
<boc> man i rule
<bram> boc: how do you rule?
<boc> with authority
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