Provided by: util-linux_2.39.3-9ubuntu6.2_amd64 
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.
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.
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 at 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/>.