Run scripts remotely over ssh with tmux

By Dan Aukes

Overview

tmux is tool that lets you run multiple sub-sessions from one session. It’s good for running simultaneous tasks that each need a terminal window without having to open simultaneous, separate ssh sessions or opening multiple terminal windows.

It also allows terminal sessions to persist even when ssh sessions or terminal windows are closed, whether on purpose or unexpectedly. This is great for installing or updating software, compiling large codebases, or other long tasks where remote connections could be unstable, or where simply window space is precious and you’ve got multiple things going at once.

Steps:

  1. first, from a terminal window or ssh session, type tmux.
  2. start the thing you want to do
  3. hit ctrl + b then d to leave the sesssion running
  4. you will re-enter the parent session
  5. to open it again, you can type tmux attach

if you have multiple tmux sessions open, you can type

tmux list-sessions

to see which sessions are open. Then, if you want to open a particular one, take the number of the session you want to open, and type

tmux attach -t <num>

where <num> is the number of the session you want to enter that you got from the list-sessions response.

Installation

sudo apt install -y tmux

Usage

create a new session

tmux

leave a session without stopping it: ctrl+b, then d

list existing sessions

tmux list-sessions

attach to an existing session

tmux attach -t [session-number]

External References