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HTML rendering created 2025-09-06 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | WARNING | COMPATIBILITY | BUGS | SEE ALSO | REPORTING BUGS | AVAILABILITY |
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SETTERM(1) User Commands SETTERM(1)
setterm - set terminal attributes
setterm [options]
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
(marked "virtual consoles only" below) do not correspond to a
terminfo(5) capability. In these cases, if the terminal type is
"con" or "linux", the string that invokes the specified capability
on the PC Minix virtual console is output. Options that are not
implemented by the terminal are ignored.
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
Turns 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 the monitor’s powersaving features off.
--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.
--help
Display help text and exit.
--version
Display version and exit.
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.
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.
Differences between the Minix and Linux versions are not
documented.
stty(1), tput(1), tty(4), terminfo(5)
For bug reports, use the issue tracker
<https://github.com/util-linux/util-linux/issues>.
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
2025-08-11. (At that time, the date of the most recent commit that
was found in the repository was 2025-08-05.) 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 2.42-start-521-ec46 2025-08-09 SETTERM(1)
Pages that refer to this page: termios(3), console_codes(4), termio(7)
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HTML rendering created 2025-09-06 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
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