urxvt(1) RXVT-UNICODE urxvt(1)
NAME
urxvtd - urxvt terminal daemon
SYNOPSIS
urxvtd [-q|--quiet] [-o|--opendisplay] [-f|--fork] [-m|--mlock]
urxvtd -q -o -f # for .xsession use
DESCRIPTION
This manpage describes the urxvtd daemon, which is the same vt102 terminal emulator as urxvt, but runs as a daemon that can open multiple
terminal windows within the same process.
You can run it from your X startup scripts, for example, although it is not dependent on a working DISPLAY and, in fact, can open windows
on multiple X displays on the same time.
Advantages of running a urxvt daemon include faster creation time for terminal windows and a lot of saved memory.
The disadvantage is a possible impact on stability - if the main program crashes, all processes in the terminal windows are terminated. For
example, as there is no way to cleanly react to abnormal connection closes, "xkill" and server resets/restarts will kill the urxvtd
instance including all windows it has opened.
OPTIONS
urxvtd currently understands a few options only. Bundling of options is not yet supported.
-q, --quiet
Normally, urxvtd outputs the message "rxvt-unicode daemon listening on <path>" after binding to its control socket. This option will
suppress this message (errors and warnings will still be logged).
-o, --opendisplay
This forces urxvtd to open a connection to the current $DISPLAY and keep it open.
This is useful if you want to bind an instance of urxvtd to the lifetime of a specific display/server. If the server does a reset,
urxvtd will be killed automatically.
-f, --fork
This makes urxvtd fork after it has bound itself to its control socket.
-m, --mlock
This makes urxvtd call mlockall(2) on itself. This locks urxvtd in RAM and prevents it from being swapped out to disk, at the cost of
consuming a lot more memory on most operating systems.
Note: In order to use this feature, your system administrator must have set your user's RLIMIT_MEMLOCK to a size greater than or equal
to the size of the urxvtd binary (or to unlimited). See /etc/security/limits.conf.
Note 2: There is a known bug in glibc (possibly fixed in 2.8 and later versions) where calloc returns non-zeroed memory when mlockall
is in effect. If you experience crashes or other odd behaviour while using --mlock, try it without it.
EXAMPLES
This is a useful invocation of urxvtd in a .xsession-style script:
urxvtd -q -f -o
This waits till the control socket is available, opens the current display and forks into the background. When you log-out, the server is
reset and urxvtd is killed.
ENVIRONMENT
RXVT_SOCKET
Both urxvtc and urxvtd use the environment variable RXVT_SOCKET to create a listening socket and to contact the urxvtd, respectively.
If the variable is missing then $HOME/.urxvt/urxvtd-<nodename> is used.
DISPLAY
Only used when the "--opendisplay" option is specified. Must contain a valid X display name.
SEE ALSO
urxvt(7), urxvtc(1)
9.15 2012-01-21 urxvt(1)