Tmux terminal

What is tmux?

The official verbiage describes tmux as a screen multiplexer, like GNU Screen. That means that tmux lets you tile windowpanes in a command-line environment. This in turn allows you to run, or keep an eye on, multiple programs within one terminal.

Installation

macOS:

brew install tmux

Fedora/RHEL:

dnf install tmux -y

Debian/Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y tmux

NixOS (declarative): Add tmux to your environment.systemPackages in /etc/nixos/configuration.nix:

# ...existing code...
environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [
  tmux
  # ...other packages...
];
# ...existing code...

Then apply the changes:

sudo nixos-rebuild switch

Or install for the current user only:

nix-env -iA nixos.tmux

Common tmux Commands

Start new named session

tmux new -s [session name]

Detach from session

ctrl+b d

List sessions

tmux ls

Attach to named session

tmux a -t [name of session]

Kill named session

tmux kill-session -t [name of session]

Split panes horizontally

ctrl+b "

Split panes vertically

ctrl+b %

Kill current pane

ctrl+b x

Move to another pane

ctrl+b [arrow key]

Cycle through panes

ctrl+b o

Cycle just between previous and current pane

ctrl+b ;

Kill tmux server, along with all sessions

tmux kill-server

Best Practices for DevOps

Use named sessions for persistent workflows (e.g., tmux new -s devops)
Automate tmux startup with scripts for common DevOps tasks
Store tmux configuration in dotfiles for reproducible environments
Use tmux with SSH for resilient remote sessions (especially in cloud/WSL)

References

Tip: Combine tmux with tools like Ansible, Terraform, and cloud CLIs for efficient multi-tasking in cloud and automation workflows.