I'd like to set the terminal title to user@host
so I can easily tell which machine I'm connected to from the window title. Is there a way to do this from SSH or from GNOME Terminal?
5 Answers
Yes. Here's an example for bash using PS1 that should be distro-agnostic:
Specifically, the escape sequence \[\e]0; __SOME_STUFF_HERE__ \a\]
is of interest. I've edited this to be set in a separate variable for more clarity.
# uncomment for a colored prompt, if the terminal has the capability; turned
# off by default to not distract the user: the focus in a terminal window
# should be on the output of commands, not on the prompt
force_color_prompt=yes
if [ -n "$force_color_prompt" ]; then
if [ -x /usr/bin/tput ] && tput setaf 1 >&/dev/null; then
# We have color support; assume it's compliant with Ecma-48
# (ISO/IEC-6429). (Lack of such support is extremely rare, and such
# a case would tend to support setf rather than setaf.)
color_prompt=yes
else
color_prompt=
fi
fi
TITLEBAR='\[\e]0;\u@\h\a\]'
# Same thing.. but with octal ASCII escape chars
#TITLEBAR='\[\033]2;\u@\h\007\]'
if [ "$color_prompt" = yes ]; then
PS1="${TITLEBAR}\[\033[01;32m\]\u@\h\[\033[00m\]:\[\033[01;34m\]\W\[\033[00m\]\$ "
else
PS1="${TITLEBAR}\u@\h:\W\$ "
fi
unset color_prompt force_color_prompt
Also note that there can be many ways of setting an xterm's title, depending on which terminal program you are using, and which shell. For example, if you're using KDE's Konsole, you can override the title setting by going to Settings
->Configure Profiles
->Edit Profile
->Tabs
and setting the Tab title format
and Remote tab title format
settings.
Additionally, you may want to check out:
- this "How to change the title of an xterm" FAQ for other shells
- this "Prompt Magic" tip for a good reference of the escape sequences that work in bash.
- this Bash Prompt HOWTO for a reference on ANSI Color escape sequences.
-
So do I need to set this on all of the servers I am connecting to or on my own local machine? May 31, 2011 at 21:11
-
@TKKocheran: You need to do this on every machine where you're running a shell. If you only want to do it for remote logins, put
\h
in that prompt only if$SSH_CLIENT
is non-empty. May 31, 2011 at 21:19 -
@TK : Yes, you will need to set this on all the servers you connect to. The PS1 variable is local to your current shell (even on a remote host), not the terminal program (ie: gnome-terminal). May 31, 2011 at 21:20
-
I assume that this will apply differently on servers not running Debian. Can you edit your answer to provide for servers running, let's say, Fedora/Red Hat derivatives? May 31, 2011 at 21:29
-
1@TK : I tested this using SSH to various hosts from an Ubuntu 11.04 machine... So the title bar was set correctly there... If it doesn't work, try adding this sequence to the front:
\[\e]2;\u@\h\a
. (Also edited my response with that info) May 31, 2011 at 22:14
Here's a version of the SSH bash script that I use which sets the remote server's title and command prompt without making any changes to the remote server.
my_ssh.sh:
#!/bin/bash
SETTP='MY_PROMPT="$HOSTNAME:$PWD\$ "'
SETTP="$SETTP;"'MY_TITLE="\[\e]0;$HOSTNAME:$PWD\a\]"'
SETTP="$SETTP;"'PS1="$MY_TITLE$MY_PROMPT"'
ssh -t $1@$2 "export PROMPT_COMMAND='eval '\\''$SETTP'\\'; bash --login"
You can invoke it by calling ./my_ssh.sh username hostname
-
I doubt this works when starting another bash session after ssh login though (e.g. when using screen) Sep 16, 2014 at 10:23
-
The following works for me (probably only on gnome-terminal):
comp@home$ cat /usr/bin/ssh
#!/bin/bash
echo -ne "\033]0;${1}\007"
ssh_bkup "$@"
Where ssh_bkup command is just basic 'ssh' with a changed name, which is called right after the echo command changes the current terminal's title.
-
wouldn't an alias solutions be better than renaming commands to something non-standard ?– X TianJun 18, 2015 at 14:24
-
This works fine for me, also gnome-terminal.
~/bin
has priority in my path, so I placed your script in my~/bin/ssh
. The last row explicitly calls to/usr/bin/ssh
. This way, other users still use the standardssh
when logged in on that machine, and (since our home directories are on server, LDAP accounts) I get the functionality on whichever machine I am logged in on.– GauthierMar 14, 2016 at 9:17 -
this is alias version
SETTP='MY_PROMPT="$HOSTNAME:$PWD\$ "'
SETTP="$SETTP;"'MY_TITLE="\[\e]0;$HOSTNAME:$PWD\a\]"'
SETTP="$SETTP;"'PS1="$MY_TITLE$MY_PROMPT"'
SETPC="export PROMPT_COMMAND='eval '\\''$SETTP'\\'; bash --login"
alias myssh='function _myssh(){ ssh -t $1@$2 $SETPC; };_myssh'
If you are using zsh
, add following into .zshrc
file:
export DISABLE_AUTO_TITLE="true"
precmd() {
printf "\033];$(whoami)@$(hostname):${PWD/#$HOME/~}\007";
}