tmux in bash script and some customizations

While wroting some tmux shell scripts I found some dificulties that where not readily resolved on the interwebs root of knowlege. So giving here some of those working scripts for a terminal multiplexer full of potentialities.

This first one is a rss-reader, using rsstail for rss reading and continuous retrieval.

#!/bin/bash
tmux="/usr/bin/tmux"
feedsname="rssfeeds"

urls="http://seclists.org/rss/oss-sec.rss
https://nvd.nist.gov/download/nvd-rss.xml
http://www.debian.org/security/dsa
http://www.linuxsecurity.com/static-content/linuxsecurity_advisories.rss"


first=1
# open rsstopics
rss_reader_cmd="rsstail -trHn 20 -u "
for url in $urls; do
if [[ $first == 1 ]]; then
$tmux new-window -n rss-topics \\"$rss_reader_cmd $url\\"
first=0
else
$tmux split-window \\"$rss_reader_cmd $url\\"
fi
done
$tmux select-layout even-vertical

first=1
#open rssnews
rss_reader_cmd="rsstail -dtcrHn 20 -u "
for url in $urls; do
if [[ $first == 1 ]]; then
$tmux new-window -n rss-news \\"$rss_reader_cmd $url\\"
first=0
else
$tmux split-window \\"$rss_reader_cmd $url\\"
fi
done
$tmux select-layout even-horizontal

This second one needs root and some administrative tools. It is a monitoring system for log messages and active modules on kernel, and in another window a net monitoring showing all IP connections using lsof and a tcpdump.

#!/bin/bash

tmux="/usr/bin/tmux"

if [[ $1 == "modules_diff" ]]; then

        echo "lsmod diff-----------------"

        get_module_list="cat /proc/modules"

        #get_module_list="lsmod"

        fname1=$(mktemp)

        fname2=$(mktemp)

        while [[ 1 ]]; do

                a="$($get_module_list |tee $fname1)";

                b="$($get_module_list |tee $fname2)";

                while [[ "x$a" == "x$b" ]]; do

                        b="$($get_module_list |tee $fname2)";

                done;

                df=$(diff -ua $fname1 $fname2 )

                echo -e "\n\n--\nlsmod changed: (last, current)\n";

                echo -e "\n\n";

        done

        exit 0

fi

$tmux new-window -n netlog "watch -n1 lsof -i -n "

$tmux split-window "tcpdump -nKHi any "

$tmux new-window -n syslog "tail -f /var/log/messages "

$tmux split-window "$SHELL $0 modules_diff"

$tmux select-layout even-vertical

Another thing I found usefull also was the sccreen lock feature. For this I installed vlock a virtual terminal lock screen app, and configured ~/.tmux.conf with the following lines:

set-option -g lock-server on

set-option -g lock-command "vlock"

set-option -g lock-after-time 300

Tired also of losing output in the window buffer I also set a gigantic history limit (for tmux history are the number of lines to have in the buffer of each pane/window):

set-option -g history-limit 999999999

And for the kicks, midnight commander style:

 set-option -g status-style "bg=colour25,fg=green,bold"

Also cool to know are the commands:

swap-pane -t <pane_to_swap_with> 

This swaps the active pane (in the window) with the pane selected with id <pane_to_swap_with>.

break-pane

break-pane takes the active pane of this window and creates a new one with just this pane.

Hope you en enjoyed...