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Multi-User Screen

Created by dave. Last edited by dave, 17 years and 138 days ago. Viewed 14,363 times. #2
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Multi-User mode Screen

I like screen; I find it an adequate (if marginally limited) substitute for multiple tabs on xterms (a la multignometerminal, for example). However, like the MGT tab scenario, I frequently want to refer to two tabs at the same time, and flipping between them gets tedious.

No worries; you can set up screen so that multiple "screens" can connect to the same running instance. Then you can have one window looking at one tab and one looking at another.

To set up:

  1. $ echo multiuser on > ~/.screenrc
  2. Screen needs to be installed set-uid for this to work; by default (on Linux, anyways) it isn't, so you have to do it:
    # chmod 4555 `which screen`
Sample session:
$ screen
(stuff happens)

In other window:

$ screen -ls
There is a screen on:
        25787.pts-13.pluto      (Multi, attached)
(...)
$ screen -r dave/25787.pts-13.pluto

You'll probably want to investigate the ACLs to limit sessions to known users, even though the default directories are mode 700.

Learned The Hard Way

If you install the screen RPM for RHEL3 and then set screen to be setuid-root, it will want you to change the permissions on /tmp:

[dave@jupiter ~]$ screen -A -D -R
Directory '/tmp' must have mode 755.
If you do this it breaks all kinds of things which can no longer write to /tmp, useful things like X, xfs (the x font server), regular user X logins, etc.
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This is a collection of techical information, much of it learned the hard way. Consider it a lab book or a /info directory. I doubt much of it will be of use to anyone else.

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