SPINNER(1)

📦 version 1.2.4, in debian bookworm, debian trixie, ubuntu jammy, ubuntu noble, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

💫 SPINNER(1) 💫

okay bestie, welcome to the General Commands Manual section for spinner — yes it's a manual page, yes it's about a tiny little spinning guy, and yes it's about to eat 💅

✨ NAME ✨

spinner — Sends small packets over a idle link

(yes we're keeping the grammar exactly like that, it's iconic, don't touch it)

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

spinner [options]

that's it. that's the whole vibe. no args, just options, go off queen 👑

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so spinner is an anti-idle program — it displays a little "spinning" ASCII character in the top left corner of your terminal. it's giving fidget spinner but make it text-mode. ⭐

why do you care?? because spinner is useful for keeping telnet and ssh links from dropping due to inactivity. literally so many firewalls, and some ISPs too, will just ~drop~ your connection when they perceive it as idle. rude. 😤

by having spinner running, the server is constantly sending a tiny amount of data over the link, preserving the connection. tiny packets, huge slay. the connection stays alive, you stay logged in, nobody gets ghosted. 🫶

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

  • -f <path> — set pid file path (default ~/.spinner.pid)
  • -F — do NOT create a pid file. like, at all. none. zero. 🙈
  • -I — do NOT use inverse video for the spinner
  • -l <path> — set log file path (for debugging). it's off by default, so don't come for me when there's no log
  • -L — display the license
  • -n — send null characters (no visible output). stealth mode, lowkey
  • -p <priority> — specifies process priority to use
  • -P — do NOT change process priority (default is to make nice)
  • -r — reset term on quit (use this if you get left in inverse a lot) 😭
  • -R — reset the term and Quit immediately.
  • -t <tty path> — specify path of TTY to which to write
  • -T — ignore incompatible TERM environment variable setting
  • -u — delay is in microseconds instead of seconds
  • -v — verbose mode (lots of output). she's chatty and we love her 💬
fr fr tho: -R is the "nope, we're done, bye" button. reset the term and quit immediately. dramatic exit, respect.

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Joe Laffey

💜 DEBIAN MAINTAINER 💜

This man page was created for Debian by Jesus Climent

and that's the whole page bestie!! go forth, keep your ssh alive, and let the little spinner do its thing 🌈✨

shoutout to the footer of this page which just says SPINNER(1) again — no cap, that's genuinely all it says. the manual name said it at the top, and the manual name says it at the bottom. consistency queen. 👑

📦 where this page comes from