Using screen for long running tasks

Screen is great for long running tasks, where you want to log in every few hours and days and keep your session alive indefinitely.

To create a new screen, do

screen -Rd screenname

This will also reattach an existing screen with that name.

Once you're in the screen, CTRL+A will bring up the menu, d detaches the screen. You can close your shell, screen and all applications running inside of it will remain alive.

Scrolling inside a screen

• Bring up the menu with CTRL+A
• Press Esc
• You can now scroll with Page up/Page down
• Esc takes you back again