Displaying dynamic prompt in SecureCRT session tab (or other SSH clients)

Question

I am looking for a way to display whatever is in my prompt in the tab in secureCRT.

If I connect to user@domain then it displays 'domain' in the tab in SecureCRT. But if from the same user@domain i ssh to another server, lets call this user@domain2 i will still see the original 'domain' in the current session tab/label.

I would like to know if it is possible to have that tab updated depending on where I am currently located so that if I have a lot of sessions open at once which all start from one server that I use to ssh to other servers i won't get confused between the tabs.

If this isn't possible with SecureCRT are there other clients somebody knows of that it is possible (for windows).

Answer 1

There are two parts:

1. does the terminal support escape sequences which can change its titlebar
2. does your shell support embedded escape sequences which can be used for this purpose.

According to these informational pages, SecureCRT does support xterm's titlebar control sequences:

• Displaying Text In The SecureCRT Title Bar
• Xterm Escape Sequences

Not all shells provide the ability to use these escape sequences. When they do, this feature is usually done by setting the PS1 variable in your shell's initialization scripts. When you ssh to another server, the shell on that remote server apparently is not doing that, or not capable.

The Bash Prompt HOWTO is useful reading — if your shell is bash. If you are using ksh for instance, you may not find a solution.