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 ain't 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) first checks to see if there is already a session group with that name. If not, it creates a new group with the commands you specify 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 tmux-menu.sh and then alias that to tm. My .gitignore prevents the customized tmux-menu.sh from being version controlled.

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.