setterm(1) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | WARNING | COMPATIBILITY | BUGS | SEE ALSO | REPORTING BUGS | AVAILABILITY

SETTERM(1)                    User Commands                   SETTERM(1)

NAME         top

       setterm - set terminal attributes

SYNOPSIS         top

       setterm [options]

DESCRIPTION         top

       setterm writes to standard output a character string that will
       invoke the specified terminal capabilities. Where possible
       terminfo is consulted to find the string to use. Some options
       however (marked "virtual consoles only" below) do not correspond
       to a terminfo(5) capability. In this case, if the terminal type
       is "con" or "linux" the string that invokes the specified
       capabilities on the PC Minix virtual console driver is output.
       Options that are not implemented by the terminal are ignored.

OPTIONS         top

       For boolean options (on or off), the default is on.

       Below, an 8-color can be black, red, green, yellow, blue,
       magenta, cyan, or white.

       A 16-color can be an 8-color, or grey, or bright followed by red,
       green, yellow, blue, magenta, cyan, or white.

       The various color options may be set independently, at least on
       virtual consoles, though the results of setting multiple modes
       (for example, --underline and --half-bright) are
       hardware-dependent.

       The optional arguments are recommended with '=' (equals sign) and
       not space between the option and the argument. For example
       --option=argument. setterm can interpret the next non-option
       argument as an optional argument too.

       --appcursorkeys on|off
           Sets Cursor Key Application Mode on or off. When on, ESC O A,
           ESC O B, etc. will be sent for the cursor keys instead of ESC
           [ A, ESC [ B, etc. See the vi and Cursor-Keys section of the
           Text-Terminal-HOWTO for how this can cause problems for vi
           users. Virtual consoles only.

       --append console_number
           Like --dump, but appends to the snapshot file instead of
           overwriting it. Only works if no --dump options are given.

       --background 8-color|default
           Sets the background text color.

       --blank[=0-60|force|poke]
           Sets the interval of inactivity, in minutes, after which the
           screen will be automatically blanked (using APM if
           available). Without an argument, it gets the blank status
           (returns which vt was blanked, or zero for an unblanked vt).
           Virtual consoles only.

           The force argument keeps the screen blank even if a key is
           pressed.

           The poke argument unblanks the screen.

       --bfreq[=number]
           Sets the bell frequency in Hertz. Without an argument, it
           defaults to 0. Virtual consoles only.

       --blength[=0-2000]
           Sets the bell duration in milliseconds. Without an argument,
           it defaults to 0. Virtual consoles only.

       --blink on|off
           Turns blink mode on or off. Except on a virtual console,
           --blink off turns off all attributes (bold, half-brightness,
           blink, reverse).

       --bold on|off
           urns bold (extra bright) mode on or off. Except on a virtual
           console, --bold off turns off all attributes (bold,
           half-brightness, blink, reverse).

       --clear[=all|rest]
           Without an argument or with the argument all, the entire
           screen is cleared and the cursor is set to the home position,
           just like clear(1) does. With the argument rest, the screen
           is cleared from the current cursor position to the end.

       --clrtabs[=tab1 tab2 tab3 ...]
           Clears tab stops from the given horizontal cursor positions,
           in the range 1-160. Without arguments, it clears all tab
           stops. Virtual consoles only.

       --cursor on|off
           Turns the terminal’s cursor on or off.

       --default
           Sets the terminal’s rendering options to the default values.

       --dump[=console_number]
           Writes a snapshot of the virtual console with the given
           number to the file specified with the --file option,
           overwriting its contents; the default is screen.dump. Without
           an argument, it dumps the current virtual console. This
           overrides --append.

       --file filename
           Sets the snapshot file name for any --dump or --append
           options on the same command line. If this option is not
           present, the default is screen.dump in the current directory.
           A path name that exceeds the system maximum will be
           truncated, see PATH_MAX from linux/limits.h for the value.

       --foreground 8-color|default
           Sets the foreground text color.

       --half-bright on|off
           Turns dim (half-brightness) mode on or off. Except on a
           virtual console, --half-bright off turns off all attributes
           (bold, half-brightness, blink, reverse).

       --hbcolor 16-color
           Sets the color for half-bright characters.

       --initialize
           Displays the terminal initialization string, which typically
           sets the terminal’s rendering options, and other attributes
           to the default values.

       --inversescreen on|off
           Swaps foreground and background colors for the whole screen.

       --linewrap on|off
           Makes the terminal continue on a new line when a line is
           full.

       --msg on|off
           Enables or disables the sending of kernel printk() messages
           to the console. Virtual consoles only.

       --msglevel 0-8
           Sets the console logging level for kernel printk() messages.
           All messages strictly more important than this will be
           printed, so a logging level of 0 has the same effect as --msg
           on and a logging level of 8 will print all kernel messages.
           klogd(8) may be a more convenient interface to the logging of
           kernel messages.

           Virtual consoles only.

       --powerdown[=0-60]
           Sets the VESA powerdown interval in minutes. Without an
           argument, it defaults to 0 (disable powerdown). If the
           console is blanked or the monitor is in suspend mode, then
           the monitor will go into vsync suspend mode or powerdown mode
           respectively after this period of time has elapsed.

       --powersave mode
           Valid values for mode are:

           vsync|on
               Puts the monitor into VESA vsync suspend mode.

           hsync
               Puts the monitor into VESA hsync suspend mode.

           powerdown
               Puts the monitor into VESA powerdown mode.

           off
               Turns monitor VESA powersaving features.

       --regtabs[=1-160]
           Clears all tab stops, then sets a regular tab stop pattern,
           with one tab every specified number of positions. Without an
           argument, it defaults to 8. Virtual consoles only.

       --repeat on|off
           Turns keyboard repeat on or off. Virtual consoles only.

       --reset
           Displays the terminal reset string, which typically resets
           the terminal to its power-on state.

       --resize
           Reset terminal size by assessing maximum row and column. This
           is useful when actual geometry and kernel terminal driver are
           not in sync. Most notable use case is with serial consoles,
           that do not use ioctl(2) but just byte streams and breaks.

       --reverse on|off
           Turns reverse video mode on or off. Except on a virtual
           console, --reverse off turns off all attributes (bold,
           half-brightness, blink, reverse).

       --store
           Stores the terminal’s current rendering options (foreground
           and background colors) as the values to be used at
           reset-to-default. Virtual consoles only.

       --tabs[=tab1 tab2 tab3 ...]
           Sets tab stops at the given horizontal cursor positions, in
           the range 1-160. Without arguments, it shows the current tab
           stop settings.

       --term terminal_name
           Overrides the TERM environment variable.

       --ulcolor 16-color
           Sets the color for underlined characters. Virtual consoles
           only.

       --underline on|off
           Turns underline mode on or off.

       -h, --help
           Display help text and exit.

       -V, --version
           Print version and exit.

WARNING         top

       Use of setterm in combination with stdout redirection can have
       unexpected results, as some options operate on stdin. To prevent
       problems, always redirect both stdin and stdout to the same
       device.

COMPATIBILITY         top

       Since version 2.25 setterm has support for long options with two
       hyphens, for example --help, beside the historical long options
       with a single hyphen, for example -help. In scripts it is better
       to use the backward-compatible single hyphen rather than the
       double hyphen. Currently there are no plans nor good reasons to
       discontinue single-hyphen compatibility.

BUGS         top

       Differences between the Minix and Linux versions are not
       documented.

SEE ALSO         top

       stty(1), tput(1), tty(4), terminfo(5)

REPORTING BUGS         top

       For bug reports, use the issue tracker at
       https://github.com/util-linux/util-linux/issues.

AVAILABILITY         top

       The setterm command is part of the util-linux package which can
       be downloaded from Linux Kernel Archive
       <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/>. This page
       is part of the util-linux (a random collection of Linux
       utilities) project. Information about the project can be found at
       ⟨https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/⟩. If you have
       a bug report for this manual page, send it to
       util-linux@vger.kernel.org. This page was obtained from the
       project's upstream Git repository
       ⟨git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/utils/util-linux/util-linux.git⟩ on
       2024-06-14. (At that time, the date of the most recent commit
       that was found in the repository was 2024-06-10.) If you discover
       any rendering problems in this HTML version of the page, or you
       believe there is a better or more up-to-date source for the page,
       or you have corrections or improvements to the information in
       this COLOPHON (which is not part of the original manual page),
       send a mail to man-pages@man7.org

util-linux 2.41.devel-537-e... 2024-04-04                     SETTERM(1)

Pages that refer to this page: termios(3)console_codes(4)termio(7)