Shell Programming and Scripting

I run multiple processes that require I pop open multiple xterms, how can I do this in a script and have each xterm colored differently and labled for the servername they represent, for example if I do ssh username@serverip I would need the xterm to be opened with that servername at the top and have it colored differently than the next xterm, the max # of terms I need for now is 6, but sometimes its 3 or 4, 5. Can anyone help with this.

Window titles and console colors are handled inside the xterms, not outside. There is a special escape sequence to set the window title for instance, which your servers might be using already for all I know.

For instance, my profile has PROMPT_COMMAND set to

Code:

echo -ne "\033]0;${USER}@${HOSTNAME%%.*}:${PWD/$HOME/~}\007"

...which sets the window title to username@host:/path/to/currentfolder every time it prints a prompt.

It also has PS1 set to

Code:

\[\033[01;32m\]\u@\h\[\033[01;34m\] \w \$\[\033[00m\]

...which causes it to print colored prompts like

Code:

username@host ~/path/to/folder $command

This is specific to the BASH shells. If you're using other shells it may be configured differently.

To force different values for these variables on login, perhaps something like:

Code:

ssh username@serverip 'PS1="# " ; export PS1 ; PROMPT_COMMAND="" ; export PROMPT_COMMAND ; exec bash --norc --nologin'

Before anything else: PLEASE REMOVE the poll - it is completely unnecessary, doesn't help anyone and the only thing it does is making you look clueless and desperate.

Second, and this might answer your poll question: have a look at the man page of xterm and you will find the "-fg" option for the foreground colour, the "-bg" option for the background colour, the "-fn" option for the font, the "-cr" option for the cursor colour, and some more. You can also put defaults for these (and more) values into the repective rc-files of your windowmanager, you can use arbitrary X-resource-strings with the "-xrm" option and a lot things more.

Is it easy or difficult to consult a man page? Ask yourself.

I hope this helps.

bakunin