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Tmux

Modern terminal multiplexer, newer alternative to GNU Screen.

Key Points

  • easier for beginners
  • works well without any config:
    • has a permanent status bar along the bottom
    • dynamic term titles
  • more powerful command line interface for managing sessions and panes
  • more easily scriptable and configurable since everything is a tmux command line that can be put in $HOME/.tmux.conf
  • server spawns to manage sessions
  • horizontal and vertical screen splitting
  • supports more modern terminal features and can better handle UTF-8 and other character encodings
  • lacks built-in serial and telnet support (which screen has)

Many Linux distributions are transitioning from screen to tmux as the newer preferred terminal multiplexer.

I still use screen as my primary and tmux as my secondary terminal multiplexer.

Tmux vs Screen

Tmux is considered more secure by default.

It historically had tighter socket permissions (screen is on parity when check though).

Tmux does not require setuid for terminal controls, and is more actively maintained.

Tip: embedding multiplexers

You can run one terminal multiplexer inside another.

eg. on a remote SSH session inside another multiplexer on your local machine.

By using screen at one layer and tmux at another, you can avoid embedded keybindings clashes and having to double escape keybindings all the time to send them through to the embedded multiplexer.

Commands

tmux

List tmux sessions to reattach to

tmux ls

Reattach to session zero:

tmux attach -t 0

or if there's only one session you can just omit the -t 0:

tmux attach

Inside tmux, you can send it commands from the command line, not just keystrokes.

tmux new-window -n some_name
tmux new-window -n another_name

Tmux Config

$HOME/.tmux.conf

Tmux does't require as much configuration as screen as it comes with a default status bar at the bottom to show you which terminal window number you're in.

My tmux config is here:

HariSekhon/DevOps-Bash-tools - configs/.tmux.conf

Scripts

See these scripts in DevOps-Bash-tools for quickly launching new screens with vertical or horizontal screen splits:

tmux_vertical.sh
tmux_horizontal.sh

Key Bindings

Ctrl-b is the default primary keybinding action key prefix, followed by the next key.

Action Keystroke
Create a new session tmux
Detach from the current session Ctrl-b , d
Attach to a session tmux attach-session -t <session_name>
List all sessions tmux ls
Create a new window Ctrl-b , c
Switch to the next window Ctrl-b , n
Switch to the previous window Ctrl-b , p
Switch to the last window Ctrl-b , l
List all windows Ctrl-b , w
Find window Ctrl-b , f
Rename the current window Ctrl-b , ,
Split the window horizontally Ctrl-b , "
Split the window vertically Ctrl-b , %
Move cursor to other pane Ctrl-b then arrow keys
Resize current pane Ctrl-b , Ctrl-<arrow>
Rearrange all panes Ctrl-b , Space
Kill the current pane Ctrl-b , x
Keep current pane, close other pane Ctrl-b , z
Unify on current split Ctrl-a , !
Enter Scroll / Copy mode Ctrl-b , [
Search backwards in the scrollback buffer ?
Search forwards in the scrollback buffer /
Next search match n
Copy text in scrollback mode to buffer - Start / Stop copy section Space to begin marker, select text, Enter to end marker to copy to buffer
Paste text from buffer Ctrl-b , ]
Send a literal Ctrl-b Ctrl-b , b
Create a new tmux session with a name tmux new-session -s <session_name>
Advanced command line mode Ctrl-b , :
List commands Ctrl-b , :list-commands
List windows Ctrl-b , :list-window
Show list of bindings Ctrl-b , ?

Ported from private Knowledge Base page 2017+