The following are some of the most used shortcuts that lets you navigate through your screen environment. Note that unless modified by your .screenrc, by default every screen shortcut is preceded by Ctrl+a. Note that these shortcuts are case-sensitive (so use shift A and K...)

Dont forget to hit Ctrl+a first, then your command (not at same time)

1. 0 through 9 - Switches between windows
2. Ctrl+n - Switches to the next available window
3. Backspace - Switches to the previous available
4. Ctrl+a - Switches back to the last window you were on
5. A - Changes window session name
6. K - Kills a window session
7. c - Creates a new window
8. [ - Then use arrows to scroll up and down terminal
9. ? - shows help
10. : - allows for full name shortcuts like VIM, so Ctrl+a: then type help, is same as Ctrl+a?
11. S - split screen horizontally
12. TAB - goes to next split screen, then you can Ctrl+a 0 through 9 to make that split one of your screens

Find out about more shortcuts in Screen's man pages. In your

I like to leave a screen session open on all my servers, then re-connect to them at the terminal or through ssh

1. List any open screens screen -list will see the name like 1433.qserver (qserver would be the screen socket name)
2. Create a new screen session screen -S somename
3. Connect to existing screen screen -x somename or if you only have one screen backgrounded, just screen -x
4. Detach (background) current screen Ctrl+a Ctrl+d

On the server you must first set the SUID bit with sudo chmod +s /usr/bin/screen, then sudo chmod 755 /var/run/screen/. See http://www.pixelbeat.org/docs/screen/

1. On the server side (lets say user hsever is creating a screen)
   1. Create new named session with screen -S coffeetime
   2. Enable multi user mode with :multiuser on
   3. Enable user mreschke to join :acladd mreschke
2. On the client side (lets say user mreschke is connecting to hservers coffeetime screen session)
   1. screen -x hsever/coffeetime

Install screen profiles

sudo apt-get install screen screen-profiles screen-profiles-extras

Then run the command byobu to start screen, then press F9 for a nice config menu

Screen keeps its configuration file in the same vein that many applications do: in a dot file in your user's home directory. This file is aptly named .screenrc. In my experience, most people use ~/.screenrc to do two things:

• Make a hardstatus line. This is basically a line at the bottom of the screen that lists your current terminal and all opened ones. It can also display the system clock and the hostname.
• Default screens on startup. It's quite nice to have your IRC connection, mail client, and default SSH connections auto-start for you!

hardstatus alwayslastline
hardstatus string '%{= kG}[ %{G}%H %{g}][%= %{=kw}%?%-Lw%?%{r}(%{W}%n*%f%t%?(%u)%?%{r})%{w}%?%+Lw%?%?%= %{g}][%{B}%Y-%m-%d %{W}%c %{g}]'

# Default screens
screen -t shell1    0
#screen -t shell2    1
#screen -t server    2    ssh me@myserver

1. http://www.redhatmagazine.com/2007/09/27/a-guide-to-gnu-screen/