Wiki > Screen

What is screen?

Screen is a terminal manager not unlike the window managers modern OS's uses. Screen lets you manage your applications running in the shell and keep them running after you have disconnected. Whatbox uses screen to have a session running with rTorrent, even after you disconnect.

How to use screen

Screen will always be running on your slot when using rTorrent. To attach your screen session type: screen -r

To run a program in a screen type screen <program> for example screen irssi would start irssi in a screen.

From within a screen, if you wish to run another application such as irssi (irc client). You can create another window for it by pressing:
Ctrl + A , c (c for create).

This will give you an empty window to start the program in. Now you have two programs running. To switch back and forth between them you press:
Ctrl + A , n (n for next)
Ctrl + A , p (p for previous).

If you want to close a window opened in screen you press:
Ctrl + A , Shift + k (k for kill). This will close the window AND end the program running in it.

When you're done managing your whatbox you can detach your session by pressing:
Ctrl + A , d (D for detach). This is what you want to do with your rtorrent screen.

Troubleshooting

If you lost connection with your whatbox and you can't reattach it because screen says it's already attached.
Type: screen -D to detach it.
Then: screen -r to attach it.

If your screen session running on your whatbox can't be attached. Try to let screen try and wipe it by typing: screen -wipe Then try to reattach it again with: screen -r

If the screen is already attached to another terminal, you can still connect with screen -x