Rename screen session
If there are several sessions, use:
screen -S 8890.foo -X sessionname bar
Summary
C-a :sessionname mySessionName
Details
This is,
Attach to the session in question.
Press Ctrl+A.
Type
:sessionname mySessionName
– yes, the first colon is needed there, no extra spaces.Type Enter.
Example
$ screen -S foo [detached from 8890.foo] $ screen -ls There is a screen on: 8890.foo (22/12/11 18:39:22) (Detached) 1 Socket in /var/run/screen/S-user. $ screen -r Ctrl+A:sessionname bars [detached from 8890.bars] $ screen -ls There is a screen on: 8890.bars (22/12/11 18:39:21) (Detached) 1 Socket in /var/run/screen/S-user. $
Renaming without attaching
Screen's -X
switch lets you rename a session without attaching it.
$ screen -X sessionname foobars
$ screen -ls
There is a screen on:
8890.foobars (22/12/11 18:39:22) (Detached)
1 Socket in /var/run/screen/S-user.
$
Alternatively, you can specifically target a screen session by its existing name or id (useful if there are already multiple sessions):
$ screen -ls
There is a screen on:
8890.foo (02/23/2015 18:39:22) (Detached)
5136.barfoos (02/23/2015 18:39:22) (Detached)
1 Socket in /var/run/screen/S-user.
$ screen -S 8890.foo -X sessionname foobars
$ screen -ls
There is a screen on:
8890.foobars (02/23/2015 18:39:22) (Detached)
5136.barfoos (02/23/2015 18:39:22) (Detached)
1 Socket in /var/run/screen/S-user.
$
This renames the current window title within a session, as displayed in the window list when you press Ctrl - a+":
- While in a screen session press Ctrl - a + A (it's an uppercase a, i.e. Shift+a), type the new name, and press Enter
Now when you do Ctrl - a+" the name you set will appear in the window list instead of bash
.
NOTE: This does not answer the original question, but I am not deleting the answer since apparently some of the visitors to this thread searched for a way to rename the window title, and not the actual session as the OP asked.