Detaching and Reattaching

The whole point of tmux: leave a session running and come back to it later — even from a different SSH connection.

Detach from a session

Press Ctrl+b then d.

The session keeps running in the background; you're back at your normal shell.

Reattach later

tmux ls                    # See what's running
tmux attach -t work        # Reattach to it

Why this matters over SSH

If your SSH connection drops while running a command directly in the shell, that command dies. If it was running inside tmux, it keeps going — you just reattach when you reconnect.

Detach everyone else too

tmux attach -t work -d     # Attach here, detach any other client viewing it

screen — the older alternative

screen -S work        # Start named session
screen -ls             # List sessions
screen -r work         # Reattach
# Detach: Ctrl+a then d

tmux and screen solve the same problem; tmux is more actively developed and has nicer pane splitting, but you'll still see screen on older systems.