terminal-colors.d

TERMINAL-COLORS.D(5) File formats TERMINAL-COLORS.D(5)

NAME

   terminal-colors.d - configure output colorization for various utilities

SYNOPSIS

   /etc/terminal-colors.d/[[name][@term].][type]

DESCRIPTION

   Files in this directory determine the default behavior for utilities when coloring output.

   The name is a utility name. The name is optional and when none is specified then the file is used for all unspecified utilities.

   The term is a terminal identifier (the TERM environment variable). The terminal identifier is optional and when none is specified then the file is used for all unspecified terminals.

   The type is a file type. Supported file types are:

   disable
       Turns off output colorization for all compatible utilities. See also the NO_COLOR environment variable below.

   enable
       Turns on output colorization; any matching disable files are ignored.

   scheme
       Specifies colors used for output. The file format may be specific to the utility, the default format is described below.

   If there are more files that match for a utility, then the file with the more specific filename wins. For example, the filename "@xterm.scheme" has less priority than
   "dmesg@xterm.scheme". The lowest priority are those files without a utility name and terminal identifier (e.g., "disable").

   The user-specific $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/terminal-colors.d or $HOME/.config/terminal-colors.d overrides the global setting.

DEFAULT SCHEME FILES FORMAT

   The following statement is recognized:

      name color-sequence

   The name is a logical name of color sequence (for example "error"). The names are specific to the utilities. For more details always see the COLORS section in the man page for the
   utility.

   The color-sequence is a color name, ASCII color sequences or escape sequences.

Color names

   black, blink, blue, bold, brown, cyan, darkgray, gray, green, halfbright, lightblue, lightcyan, lightgray, lightgreen, lightmagenta, lightred, magenta, red, reset, reverse, and
   yellow.

ANSI color sequences

   The color sequences are composed of sequences of numbers separated by semicolons. The most common codes are:
      
                                            
       0   to restore default color         
      
                                            
       1   for brighter colors              
      
                                            
       4   for underlined text              
      
                                            
       5   for flashing text                
      
                                            
       30  for black foreground             
      
                                            
       31  for red foreground               
      
                                            
       32  for green foreground             
      
                                            
       33  for yellow (or brown) foreground 
      
                                            
       34  for blue foreground              
      
                                            
       35  for purple foreground            
      
                                            
       36  for cyan foreground              
      
                                            
       37  for white (or gray) foreground   
      
                                            
       40  for black background             
      
                                            
       41  for red background               
      
                                            
       42  for green background             
      
                                            
       43  for yellow (or brown) background 
      
                                            
       44  for blue background              
      
                                            
       45  for purple background            
      
                                            
       46  for cyan background              
      
                                            
       47  for white (or gray) background   
      

Escape sequences

   To specify control or blank characters in the color sequences, C-style \-escaped notation can be used:
      
                                      
       \a  Bell (ASCII 7)             
      
                                      
       \b  Backspace (ASCII 8)        
      
                                      
       \e  Escape (ASCII 27)          
      
                                      
       \f  Form feed (ASCII 12)       
      
                                      
       \n  Newline (ASCII 10)         
      
                                      
       \r  Carriage Return (ASCII 13) 
      
                                      
       \t  Tab (ASCII 9)              
      
                                      
       \v  Vertical Tab (ASCII 11)    
      
                                      
       \?  Delete (ASCII 127)         
      
                                      
       \_  Space                      
      
                                      
       \\  Backslash (\)              
      
                                      
       \^  Caret (^)                  
      
                                      
       \# │ Hash mark (#)              │
      

   Please note that escapes are necessary to enter a space, backslash, caret, or any control character anywhere in the string, as well as a hash mark as the first
   character.

   For example, to use a red background for alert messages in the output of dmesg(1), use:

      echo 'alert 37;41' >> /etc/terminal-colors.d/dmesg.scheme

Comments

   Lines where the first non-blank character is a # (hash) are ignored. Any other use of the hash character is not interpreted as introducing a comment.

ENVIRONMENT

   TERMINAL_COLORS_DEBUG=all
       enables debug output.

   NO_COLOR
       if defined, this disables output colorization unless explicitly enabled by a command-line option. See https://no-color.org/ for more details. Supported since
       util-linux version 2.41.

FILES

   $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/terminal-colors.d

   $HOME/.config/terminal-colors.d

   /etc/terminal-colors.d

EXAMPLE

   Disable colors for all compatible utilities:

      touch /etc/terminal-colors.d/disable

   Disable colors for all compatible utils on a vt100 terminal:

      touch /etc/terminal-colors.d/@vt100.disable

   Disable colors for all compatible utils except dmesg(1):

      touch /etc/terminal-colors.d/disable

      touch /etc/terminal-colors.d/dmesg.enable

COMPATIBILITY

   The terminal-colors.d functionality is currently supported by all util-linux utilities which provides colorized output. For more details always see the COLORS section
   in the man page for the utility.

REPORTING BUGS

   For bug reports, use the issue tracker <https://github.com/util-linux/util-linux/issues>.

AVAILABILITY

   terminal-colors.d is part of the util-linux package which can be downloaded from Linux Kernel Archive <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/>.

util-linux 2.41 2025-03-18 TERMINAL-COLORS.D(5)