# Use the Cloud Shell Terminal

This page describes how to use the Cloud Shell Terminal.

## Use the terminal

Cloud Shell provides command-line access to the virtual machine
instance in a terminal window that opens in the Google Cloud console. You can open
multiple shell connections to the same instance.

To view the gcloud CLI available commands, run `gcloud --help`.

In addition to accessing the [Google Cloud CLI](https://docs.cloud.google.com/sdk/gcloud) and other
utilities from the command line, you can use the `cloudshell` command to launch
tutorials, open the Cloud Shell Editor, and download files.

For more information, run `cloudshell help`.

### Scroll the display

In addition to using your mouse while browser focus is on a session tab, you can
scroll by pressing `Ctrl`+`Shift`+`PageUp` / `Ctrl`+`Shift`+`PageDn`
(Windows and Linux) or `Fn`+`Shift`+`Up` / `Fn`+`Shift`+`Down` (on Mac OS X).

### Copy and paste text

To copy and paste text:

1. Select some text in the session display or another window using your
   mouse.

2. To copy the text, press `Ctrl`+`C` (on Windows or Linux) or `Cmd`+`C`
   (on macOS).

3. To paste at your cursor location, press `Ctrl`+`V` (on Windows or Linux) or
   `Cmd`+`V` (on macOS).

### Send a key combination using the Google Cloud console

Click ![Send Key Combination Button](https://docs.cloud.google.com/static/shell/docs/images/send-keys.png)
**Send Key Combination** and then press `Ctrl`+`V`.

## Configure terminal settings

To adjust your terminal settings, click
![Settings Button](https://docs.cloud.google.com/static/shell/docs/images/settings-button.png) **Settings**. In this
menu, you can set your Terminal preferences for theme, font type and size, and
copy, keyboard and scrollbar default settings.

### Keyboard layout support

If you're using an international keyboard or would like to customize your
key bindings, Cloud Shell lets you specify which key behaves
as Alt Gr (your modifier key). To specify key mapping, go to the
**Terminal Settings** menu, select
**Terminal Preferences** \> **Keyboard** \> **Alt Gr Key** and choose one of the
following options:

- Auto - Autodetect based on browser language
- None - Disable any AltGr related munging
- Ctrl-Alt - Set Ctrl+Alt as AltGr
- Left-Alt - Set left Alt as AltGr
- Right-Alt - Set right Alt as AltGr

Additionally, you can set 'Alt is meta' to specify that your alt key should
behave as a meta key.

## Open multiple terminal sessions

To open additional sessions, click
![Add Session Button](https://docs.cloud.google.com/static/shell/docs/images/add-session-button.png)
**Add Cloud Shell Session** at the top of the
Cloud Shell window. Each session connects to the same virtual
machine instance. When you open a new session, it appears in a new tab at the
bottom of the Google Cloud console.

## Tab title customization

Cloud Shell understands xterm escape sequences for
[setting tab titles](http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Xterm-Title-4.html#ss4.3). To rename
a tab title, set the `PS1` environment variable in your .bashrc to your
chosen configuration and source your .bashrc for the change to take.