Skip to content

screen

Terminal multiplexer, and the serial console of last resort

What it does

Keeps terminal sessions alive independently of the terminal they were started from, so a dropped connection does not kill what was running. It also opens serial devices directly.

Why you would want it

Two reasons, and the second is the real one: sessions that survive a dropped SSH connection to a field machine, and the fact that a great deal of ham and SDR documentation instructs the reader to run screen /dev/ttyUSB0 115200. tmux is the better multiplexer; screen is the one the instructions name.

Before it will work

Membership of the dialout group for serial use.

How it installs

  • apt: screen

Known problems

Version 5 changed defaults and key handling; Kali ships 5.x while Debian 13 and Parrot ship 4.9. Instructions written for one may not match the other. Detaching from a serial session leaves the port held open, which then looks like a busy device to the next program.

Keeping it current

  • probe: apt policy
  • strategy: apt_upgrade

Source: catalog/packages/screen.yaml