Complete procedure for changing the background color to a different color for each different host

Kvothe

12/9/23, 1:50 PM

I am looking for a clear explanation on how to change the background color on a terminal depending on the host that is being ssh'ed into. Preferable requiring only local changes (but I will take a solution requiring altering something like .bashrc in every host if it is the only way). Ideally the color refers back to normal upon exiting. The method should also not disrupt rsync (see https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/331429/how-to-automatically-change-terminal-background-based-on-ssh-hostname and http://serverfault.com/questions/267154/protocol-version-mismatch-is-your-shell-clean).

A partial solution can be found here https://serverfault.com/questions/130436/how-can-i-automatically-change-terminal-colors-when-i-ssh-a-server but it requires AppleScript.

A partial solution seems to be available here, but it doesn't describe a clear enough procedure for me to reproduce and apparently it breaks rsync.

Relevant information can also be found in https://superuser.com/questions/347512/can-i-have-my-terminal-background-change-based-on-hostname.

0 + 3

ssh

gnome-terminal

Organic Marble

12/10/23, 1:47 PM

Also https://askubuntu.com/q/13705/243321

egmont

12/11/23, 8:50 AM

If anything breaks `rsync` then that's because the remote shell _unconditionally_ outputs something, probably from `.profile`, `.bash_profile`, `.bashrc` or alike. The solution is to make it conditional to the output going to a _terminal_, i.e. `if [ -t 1 ]; then ...; fi`. Alternatively, make it conditional to the shell being an _interactive_ one.

egmont

12/11/23, 8:54 AM

Quite a few terminal emulators, including `gnome-terminal` which you tagged the question with, supports the OSC 11 escape sequence to change the default background color (but do so retroactively for earlier output, too, which might be confusing). E.g. `printf '\e]11;#abcdef\e\\'`. Reset with OSC 111 `printf '\e]111\e\\'`

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