While taking the Advanced Programming class, the thing that bothers me the most is not that we need to program using Vim in CLAC, a remote server, but every time when I leave for a cup of coffee, my laptop sleeps, and CLAC connection is automatically closed, so I have to type clac, cd cs3157/labN/part1, vim xxx.c again and again, which is really annoying.

Jae briefly mentioned a handy tool, called tmux, in listserv, and I found that is useful if you are a coffee person like me.

What is tmux?

In short, tmux is a terminal multiplexer tool that allows you to run multiple terminal programs in the background. You can detach a session (let’s say, vim lab3.c) when you want to leave, and re-attach it at any time.

There are so many things behind tmux that will are useful for development, but here I will just go through a very simple case: how to keep your vim process running on CLAC and go and grab a coffee.

Keep a Session Running in the Background

Now, logging in to CLAC by either typing clac (a shortcut that is introduced in listserv) or doing it in the normal way.

clac

Let’s create a new tmux session by typing:

tmux new

Now, you are entering to a new tmux session. Type tmux ls to see all active tmux sessions.

test@clac:~$ tmux ls
0: 1 windows (created Thu Dec  2 11:27:27 2021) [28x40] (attached)

For now, You can just do all the things that you normally would do in CLAC, such as cd cs3157/labN/partN, vim hello.c, etc.

When you’re about to leave, use key binding C-b d.

C here means Control/ Command.

You will now see your terminal has been split into two. The left session is the vim session that you were running, and the right session is a brand new session.

You can now safely leave, get a coffee, have a rest, or even close the terminal, and when you come back and would like to restart, type:

clac
tmux attach

You will see that you have retrieved the session you were running before. Good luck on coding!

When you have submitted the lab and want to sleep, just type exit to exit the tmux session.

tmux will also be useful if you want to split your windows into two, one at the current lab and the other at the previous lab solutions.

Useful Links

If you’d like to know more about tmux, here are two links that might be useful:

tmux Official Document: Getting Started

A Quick and Easy Guide to tmux