← Back to context

Comment by jelder

1 day ago

This is written for the Linux-on-the-Desktop crowd, and good for them. But tmux really shines for folks using MacBooks with iTerm2. Its tmux integration is so good that it simply disappears into my workflow.

With this in my `~/.ssh/config`, I can just type `ssh tmux` to get back to my remote dev box whenever I wake my computer or change connections.

    Host tmux
      HostName 1.2.3.4
      IdentityFile ~/.ssh/etc.etc.etc
      RequestTTY force
      RemoteCommand tmux -CC new -A -s 0

With iTerm2's tmux integration enabled, this will pop open a new window where the remote tmux tabs and scroll buffer look and act just like native, local iTerm2 tabs and scroll buffer. I don't even know any tmux commands.

53 comments

jelder

Reply
saghm  7 hours ago

As someone who uses Linux on all my personal machines but has usually had to use a MacBook for work, tmux is also pretty useful as a platform- independent tool for me to reuse the same workflow without needing to worry about differences between the two. I use Alacritty on Linux, but when I've tried using it on MacOS, there have things that don't seem to work for me out of the box the same way they do in Linux (which I'm struggling to remember exactly at the moment, but I think one of them might have been the setting to have the window maximized on startup). Rather than spend time trying to tinker around on an operating system that I don't have any particular desire to use outside of just getting my work done, it's pretty nice to be able to use tmux on iTerm to get basically the same experience I do on Linux. From that perspective, having something like an entirely independent way of scrolling back in a session is a feature to me, not an annoyance.

A lot of these arguments against tmux seem like they're more relevant to someone developing a terminal rather than using it. It's fine for people working on their own terminals to decide they don't care to support it, but I don't really find the arguments convincing as something I should care about, and I'd personally just switch to another terminal with better support for it rather than stop using it.

mike-cardwell  1 day ago

I use a combination of mosh and screen for this. I only need to type something to get my session back, after a reboot. Changing networks or putting my laptop to sleep for days doesn't drop my sessions: https://www.grepular.com/Immortal_SSH_Sessions

  • nyarlathotep_  14 hours ago

    Mosh is incredibly useful. I have sessions running from uptime until reboot with machines (pis and a desktop) on my local network from my laptop.

    I leave with the laptop, return days later, and perform no manual intervention to reconnect. It's absolutely brilliant.

    • anthk  6 hours ago

      I used mosh when my data plan plumetted to 2.7 KBPS (~ISDN/2G speeds).

      I connected to a public Unix server and read news, IRC'ed, IM'ed and such like crazy. Also, without being connected to a Pubnix, IRC and Gopher did it fine, the web with patience, and the same with Gemini (gemini://gemi.dev has been really useful to read news and scrap a 95% of unneeded scripts and trackers from web sites).

      Usenet was slow on fetching, but totally readable the next morning, and, better, offline.

  • ghkbrew  19 hours ago

    Mosh looks very cool, though I've never used it. Does Screen provide some advantage over tmux in this setup?

    • radiofreeeuropa  15 hours ago

      Mosh is excellent. It lets remote sessions survive (well, automatically and transparently recover from) disruption that reliably kills ssh.

      I basically don't use ssh at all any more for interactive sessions, because I'm sick of a few lost packets on wifi or a weak cell signal dropping my connections and forcing me to start over.

      Tmux, I used to use and eventually abandoned. I decided I didn't need two keyboard-based window managers (I use Spectacle on Mac) and the one that was only for shells was the one that could go. I have replaced it with nothing, so far, aside from that I just open more Terminal.app windows now (I also used to use iTerm2, for years, until it dawned on me that I was using exactly nothing in it that's not also provided by Terminal.app, and the latter's got better input latency, so I was suffering an extra installed program and slightly less responsive typing for no reason at all)

    • jvanderbot  18 hours ago

      Yes. Mosh is a seamless replacement for ssh, and screen is a mostly seamless replacement for tmux. One more level is Mosh+byobu, which is so useful I don't even bother with plain terminals most the time.

      3 replies →

suslik  1 day ago

Wow, I've tried tmux like a hundred times and could never learn to like it, falling back to screen and promising to myself - never again. I'm going to break my promise to try this.

  • fouc  20 hours ago

    I've always found screen's ctrl-a is so much easier to reach for than tmux's ctrl-b. I recommend re-mapping ctrl-b to ctrl-a

    • benreesman  3 hours ago

      I've had it on C-o forever to mostly stay out of readline's way, but I've been dabbling with C-Space.

    • _kst_  19 hours ago

      I use Ctrl-Space.

          unbind-key C-b
    set -g prefix C-Space
    bind-key C-Space send-prefix

      I find it a lot easier to type than either Ctrl-A or Ctrl-B.

      1 reply →

    • __david__  18 hours ago

      Both C-a and C-b are so commonly used that I don’t like either of them. I ended up going with C-\ since I only rarely use that one.

    • anthk  17 hours ago

      I just remapped the keys to ctrl-z after I swapped ctrl and caps lock. As you'd never suspend stuff under tmux for obvious reasons, you'll get the whole keyset for any cli/tui software.

      4 replies →

  • nolist_policy  1 day ago

    Isn't the screen equivalent literally this?

      Host tmux
      HostName 1.2.3.4
      IdentityFile ~/.ssh/etc.etc.etc
      RequestTTY force
      RemoteCommand screen -dR

    Edit: I guess it's missing the iTerm integration

scelerat  1 day ago

I ran into so many little annoying color and font issues with vim, tmux and iTerm2 that I gave up on tmux (for local work). What small benefit I got from tmux on my local machine (basically surviving updates and a little more session persistence) I rarely miss.

I wanted it to be better, and might go back if I could figure out the font issues, but I just don't have the time right now.

  • quesera  14 hours ago

    > vim, tmux and iTerm2

    Interesting, I've been using exactly that combination for ... as long as tmux and iTerm2 have been around?

    I am not aware of any color or font issues. What am I missing?

aargh_aargh  1 day ago

Does any Linux terminal have a comparable integration? I'm still using GNU Screen but willing to give tmux another shot.

jayknight  16 hours ago

I've just now learned about tmux's control mode. Can you explain what that tmux -CC command does? I use `ssh -t <host> tmux attach -d` from bash history to (re)establish my remote tmux session. `new -A -s 0` would do the about same thing, I just don't see how -CC is supposed to work here.

Edit: It appears to be related to iterm2's tmux integration. Neat.

alexozer  17 hours ago

Wow, I was wondering if e.g. Ghostty could implement something like this but that's cool it's already proven out.

Does everything still go "through" tmux (so parsing etc. is still done twice), or does iTerm handle most of the rendering and just delegate scrollback storage/session persistence to tmux? The latter seems like the best of both worlds.

  • gorjusborg  15 hours ago

    Composing simpler tools works better than complicated tools that try to solve everything.

    I am a former Kitty user and current Ghostty user and hope Ghostty stays basic and good.

op00to  21 hours ago

Would mosh stop you from having to reconnect to SSH at least after wake? You'd still need to reestablish a mosh connection after rebooting.

  • paradox460  20 hours ago

    Tmux cc mode doesn't work over mosh. Something to do with how it mangles binary going over the wire. Breaks other iTerm2 features like local copy paste from remote paste boards, drag and drop uploaf and download