6.2 Screen Command

Command: screen [opts] [n] [cmd [args] | //group]

(C-a c, C-a C-c)
Establish a new window. The flow-control options (‘-f’, ‘-fn’ and ‘-fa’), title option (‘-t’), login options (‘-l’ and ‘-ln’) , terminal type option (‘-T term’), the all-capability-flag (‘-a’) and scrollback option (‘-h num’) may be specified with each command. The option (‘-M’) turns monitoring on for this window. The option (‘-L’) turns output logging on for this window. If an optional number n in the range 0…MAXWIN-1 is given, the window number n is assigned to the newly created window (or, if this number is already in-use, the next available number). If a command is specified after screen, this command (with the given arguments) is started in the window; otherwise, a shell is created. If ‘//group’ is supplied, a container-type window is created in which other windows may be created inside it. See Window Groups.

Screen has built in some functionality of ‘cu’ and ‘telnet’. See Window Types.

Thus, if your .screenrc contains the lines

# example for .screenrc:
screen 1
screen -fn -t foobar 2 -L telnet foobar

screen creates a shell window (in window #1) and a window with a TELNET connection to the machine foobar (with no flow-control using the title ‘foobar’ in window #2) and will write a logfile ‘screenlog.2’ of the telnet session. If you do not include any screen commands in your .screenrc file, then screen defaults to creating a single shell window, number zero. When the initialization is completed, screen switches to the last window specified in your .screenrc file or, if none, it opens default window #0.