Re: Using screen after sudo bash

[Aaron Davies]

On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 11:13 AM, Kipling Inscore <address@hidden> wrote:

> While screen is running, the tty (at least if it's a pts) from which
> screen was launched still exists (and is still owned by user, not
> root) but isn't listed by w or who. Perhaps it's something to do with
> how w and who work or what happens on the tty from which screen was
> launched while screen is running.
>
> I would recommend investigating w and who (unless someone else on the
> screen list has a suggestion).

Those user lists generally depend on utmp, which tracks current
logins. In fact, the presence of a screen process in w is controllable
with C-a L (login)--under normal settings, each window is a separate
login.

I don't know specifically how or why screen would remove its parent
from w, but I would guess that it toggles it to logged out, possibly
in order to replace it with the entries it's about to generate for the
windows. Does the parent stay missing from w if you detach?

BTW, this reminds me, I occasionally have screen lock up on me
(neither screen commands nor any other commands appear to have any
effect), and when I open another shell on the box, I discover some
sort of utmp-related process in ps. If I kill it, screen unlocks. This
generally seems to happen when I type (or mistype) a complex series of
screen commands, but I've never been able to isolate exactly what
causes it. Anyone have any ideas?
--
Aaron Davies
address@hidden