tmux-menu.sh

A hack tmux menu script to manage multiple tmux sessions

REQ: tmux v3+

Need

After I discovered tmux I searched for a way to manage multiple groups of tmux sessions under one unified script. Not finding anything (or maybe just not looking well enough) I decided to write my own. It's not pretty, but I've been using for a couple of years now and it's become an integral part of my workflow.

My setup works this way:

Imagine you have multiple SSH connections

web-dev
web-prod
database-dev
database-prod

and you want to group them together in similar groups.

With this script you can name collections of sessions and switch between them easily with just a few keystrokes.

Let's see an example using the above connections:

case $session in
    web)
        if [[ $tcheck == 0 ]]; then
            tmux new-session -d -s web
            tmux rename-window 'local'
            tmux new-window -t 1 -n 'root@web-dev' 'exec ssh root@web-dev.example.org'
            tmux new-window -t:2 -n 'user@web-prod' 'exec ssh user@webprod.example.org'
        fi
    tmux attach-session -t web
;;

case $session in
    database)
        if [[ $tcheck == 0 ]]; then
            tmux new-session -d -s database
            tmux rename-window 'local'
            tmux new-window -t 1 -n 'root@database-dev' 'exec ssh root@databasedev.example.org'
            tmux new-window -t:2 -n 'user@database-prod' 'exec ssh user@wdatabase.example.org'
        fi
    tmux attach-session -t database
;;

Calling the script with a pre-determined session name (ex: ./tmux-menu.sh web or ./tmux-menu.sh database) firstchecks to see if there is already a session group with that name. If not, it creates a new group with the commands youspecify and names each connection in tmux.

If the session group does already exist, it simply switches you to that group.

If you alias tmux-menu.sh to something shorter (like tm), switching between active sessions is as easy as Ctrl-A + d (to detach) and tm web (to attach or create the web group).

Killing session groups is as easy as tmux-session kill -t web.

Use

I've found that I use this script on different servers with different configurations. So I copy the tmux-menu.template.sh to $HOME/tmux-menu.sh and then alias that to tm.

I also include my .tmux.conf file with comments about what does what. If you choose to use it, make sure to copy it to your home directory.