Kill detached screen session

Question

I learned from somewhere a detached screen can be killed by

screen -X -S [session # you want to kill] kill

where [session # you want to kill] can be gotten from

screen -ls

But this doesn't work. Anything wrong? What's the correct way?

"somewhere" is not always a good source of information. Try "man screen". — innaM, Oct 02 '09 at 14:08

score 1266 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 16 '19 at 19:41

1266

"kill" will only kill one screen window. To "kill" the complete session, use quit.

Example

$ screen -X -S [session # you want to kill] quit

For dead sessions use: $ screen -wipe

edited Apr 16 '19 at 19:41

Community

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answered Oct 02 '09 at 14:10

innaM

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type 'exit' (without the quotes) in ubuntu :P – mzalazar Jan 23 '13 at 12:48
16

`exit` works but needs to be typed into each screen that was opened. `quit` does not even work – kapad Aug 19 '13 at 22:35
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@kapad actually quit works if you write it inline -X -S pid/sockname quit – Eduard Jul 04 '14 at 15:24
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on OSX entering `screen -X quit` on any terminal terminates all active sessions – Michel May 29 '15 at 09:07
'quit' worked for me on Ubuntu 16.04 – Akash Agarwal Oct 13 '17 at 04:36
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Ctrl + D also works – Yi Xin Dec 06 '17 at 13:28
Exit and quit and Ctrl-D do not work. poweroff, reboot, init 6 will work, as will pkill, but with severe caveats. Try and imagine doing this remotely with Ansible or plink. You can also connect to a process running inside the unattachable screen and end that (Minecraft by rcon, say). – mckenzm May 20 '19 at 01:43

score 497 · Answer 2 · edited Mar 03 '14 at 19:47

497

You can kill a detached session which is not responding within the screen session by doing the following.

Type screen -list to identify the detached screen session.
```
~$ screen -list  
    There are screens on:  
         20751.Melvin_Peter_V42  (Detached)  
```
Note: 20751.Melvin_Peter_V42 is your session id.
Get attached to the detached screen session
```
screen -r 20751.Melvin_Peter_V42
```
Once connected to the session press Ctrl + A then type :quit

edited Mar 03 '14 at 19:47

0xcaff

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answered Feb 22 '10 at 03:15

Melvin Peter

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you can just use screen -r 20751 without the full name – Gal Bracha Jul 09 '13 at 12:47
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or: Ctrl + a, k – laffuste Nov 15 '13 at 08:40
@laffuste 's comment worked for me, but `quit` and `:quit` lead to `command not found` on my remote Linux server (perhaps differences between versions of the OS or screen are to blame) – Hack-R Mar 20 '15 at 15:05
once attached to the screen, `exit` also works – pka32 Jan 13 '17 at 07:17

score 145 · Answer 3 · edited Jan 10 '13 at 12:43

145

List screens:

screen -list

Output:

There is a screen on:
23536.pts-0.wdzee       (10/04/2012 08:40:45 AM)        (Detached)
1 Socket in /var/run/screen/S-root.

Kill screen session:

screen -S 23536 -X quit

edited Jan 10 '13 at 12:43

13ren

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answered Oct 04 '12 at 12:52

Collin Thomas

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'screen -ls' also works. ;) – vaibhavatul47 Nov 21 '16 at 07:00

score 113 · Answer 4 · answered Sep 30 '10 at 13:09

113

It's easier to kill a session, when some meaningful name is given:

//Creation:
screen -S some_name proc
// Kill detached session
screen -S some_name -X quit

answered Sep 30 '10 at 13:09

Hitman_99

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Why `screen -S` and not `screen -r`? – 43Tesseracts Dec 02 '17 at 00:52
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This answer uses the name of the session, which is way more convenient than looking up the ID. Thank You! – Paul Kenjora Jul 09 '18 at 18:29

score 43 · Answer 5 · edited Mar 03 '14 at 19:49

43

You can just go to the place where the screen session is housed and run:

 screen -ls

which results in

 There is a screen on:
         26727.pts-0.devxxx      (Attached)
 1 Socket in /tmp/uscreens/S-xxx. <------ this is where the session is.

And just remove it:

```
cd /tmp/uscreens/S-xxx
```
```
ls
```
```
26727.pts-0.devxxx
```
```
rm 26727.pts-0.devxxx
```
```
ls
```

The uscreens directory will not have the 26727.pts-0.devxxx file in it anymore. Now to make sure just type this:

screen -ls

and you should get:

No Sockets found in /tmp/uscreens/S-xxx.

edited Mar 03 '14 at 19:49

0xcaff

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answered Sep 29 '11 at 18:44

rc2012

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This is the only solution that will work if the screen is "stuck", ie. not dead, but cannot be attached to. – redreinard Jul 22 '15 at 20:28
This helped me when the screen was utterly locked, but I did need to find and kill the actual process as well. `ps aux | grep screen` found the pid and I issued a `kill` to remove it. Depending on what you had running in your screen, you may have temp files and locks to clean up as well. – Lomky Jan 09 '17 at 16:29

score 29 · Answer 6 · edited Feb 12 '15 at 23:30

29

screen -wipe

Should clean all dead screen sessions.

edited Feb 12 '15 at 23:30

Goodwine

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answered May 07 '12 at 22:03

Vishv Jeet

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What means dead? not running any program? – Shihao Xu Jun 29 '16 at 08:18
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@ShihaoXu Dead means the session is unreachable and on localhost (socket connection is broken). - see https://www.gnu.org/software/screen/manual/screen.html – illnr Jun 30 '18 at 07:33

score 23 · Answer 7 · edited Mar 03 '14 at 19:50

23

add this to your ~/.bashrc:

alias cleanscreen="screen -ls | tail -n +2 | head -n -2 | awk '{print $1}'| xargs -I{} screen -S {} -X quit"

Then use cleanscreen to clean all screen session.

edited Mar 03 '14 at 19:50

0xcaff

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answered Feb 28 '13 at 00:01

user2115803

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A simple one-liner: `screen -ls | grep Detached | cut -d. -f1 | awk '{print $1}' | xargs kill` – Ariel Jul 28 '14 at 17:41
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Worked a treat, but had to modify it slightly to work on OSX: `screen -ls | tail +2 | head -2 | awk '{print $1}'| xargs -I{} screen -S {} -X quit` – Jonathan Mar 15 '15 at 04:39
Slight improvement:-screen -ls | grep Attached | cut -d. -f1 | awk '{print $1}' | xargs -I{} screen -d {} – Abhay Yadav Jul 18 '15 at 05:22

score 21 · Answer 8 · answered Oct 18 '12 at 04:52

21

For me a simple

exit

works. This is from within the screen session.

answered Oct 18 '12 at 04:52

Nick Desaulniers

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also, ctrl+a `:quit` – Nick Desaulniers Nov 18 '16 at 19:22
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also, ctrl+a, then K – Nick Desaulniers Aug 14 '17 at 21:51
Or just CTRL+D within a screen – Frederik Witte Aug 01 '18 at 14:34

score 16 · Answer 9 · answered Jan 21 '13 at 21:02

16

To kill all detached screen sessions, include this function in your .bash_profile:

killd () {
for session in $(screen -ls | grep -o '[0-9]\{5\}')
do
screen -S "${session}" -X quit;
done
}

to run it, call killd

answered Jan 21 '13 at 21:02

Rose Perrone

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Sometimes it's not 5 digits, so i use: killd () { for session in $(screen -ls | grep -o '[0-9]\+') do screen -S "${session}" -X quit; done } – Kostyantyn May 20 '13 at 11:58

score 7 · Answer 10 · answered Jun 30 '10 at 16:14

7

== ISSUE THIS COMMAND
[xxx@devxxx ~]$ screen -ls


== SCREEN RESPONDS
There are screens on:
        23487.pts-0.devxxx      (Detached)
        26727.pts-0.devxxx      (Attached)
2 Sockets in /tmp/uscreens/S-xxx.


== NOW KILL THE ONE YOU DONT WANT
[xxx@devxxx ~]$ screen -X -S 23487.pts-0.devxxx kill


== WANT PROOF?
[xxx@devxxx ~]$ screen -ls
There is a screen on:
        26727.pts-0.devxxx      (Attached)
1 Socket in /tmp/uscreens/S-xxx.

answered Jun 30 '10 at 16:14

duggi

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Wouldn't that just remove the socket, not kill the process behind it? – Martin C. Jul 31 '12 at 05:56
Is this method is risky from the point of view of creation of zomby processes ? – Fedir RYKHTIK Oct 01 '12 at 13:02

score 5 · Answer 11 · answered Mar 02 '12 at 11:21

5

Alternatively, while in your screen session all you have to do is type exit

This will kill the shell session initiated by the screen, which effectively terminates the screen session you are on.

No need to bother with screen session id, etc.

answered Mar 02 '12 at 11:21

dat789

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Kill detached screen session

11 Answers11

Example

Linked