Fix Urxvt Terminfo

   2014-02-03      Tech      linux

This is for rxvt-unicode users. If applications like top or screen complain on a remote machine with a message like

open terminal failed: missing or unsuitable terminal: rxvt-unicode-256color

then the proper terminfo in /usr/share/terminfo is missing. To address this problem, first create a terminfo file in a urxvt session on your local machine.

infocmp -L rxvt-unicode-256color > urxvt.tic

Copy the file to the remote host and run

tic urxvt.tic

This will create a compiled terminfo in your home directory or directly install it system-wide in case you execute as root. For more information, see man tic.