Xshell Highlight Sets __hot__ Official
Highlight Sets is a powerful visual feature that tracks specific text strings (keywords) or regular expressions in the terminal output and emphasizes them using custom colors or font styles NetSarang Computer How to Set Up Highlight Sets You can create and manage these sets directly through the Xshell Terminal interface: netsarang.atlassian.net Open the Dialog : Go to the menu and select Terminal Highlight Sets Create a New Set
and give your set a descriptive name (e.g., "Log Errors" or "Cisco Syntax"). Add Keywords Select your set and click Enter the keyword you want to track. : You can enable Case Sensitive matching or use Regular Expressions
(Perl-compatible DEELX engine) for complex patterns like IPs or timestamps. Customize Appearance
area, choose your highlight style, such as bold text or specific terminal colors. netsarang.atlassian.net Applying the Highlight Set xshell highlight sets
Once created, you must apply the set to your session to see it in action: Per Session : Open the Session Properties of a specific host, navigate to the category, and select your desired set from the Highlight Set dropdown menu. Global Default
: You can also set a default highlight set for all new sessions in the program options. netsarang.atlassian.net Common Use Cases Error Tracking
: Automatically turn words like "ERROR," "FAILED," or "CRITICAL" red to make them stand out in busy log files. Configuration Management Highlight Sets is a powerful visual feature that
: Highlight specific syntax for network devices (e.g., Cisco or Juniper) to improve readability. Data Parsing
: Use regex to highlight phone numbers, email addresses, or specific IP patterns within terminal streams. netsarang.atlassian.net regular expressions for common logs like IP addresses or dates? How do I create syntax highlighting for exact matches?
Answer: Try exact matching of regular expressions. The following keyword in the "keyword to highlight" field would work. \bDOWN\b. netsarang.atlassian.net Xshell® 6 - NetSarang Computer Issue 2: Too many lines are matching
Issue 2: Too many lines are matching.
- Be specific: Use word boundaries
\bor anchors^(start of line) /$(end of line). - Case sensitivity: Use
(?i)only when needed.
Example 1: Basic Error Highlighting
- Name:
Critical Errors - Pattern type: Regular Expression (more powerful)
- Pattern:
(?i)(error|fatal|exception|panic)(?i)makes it case-insensitive.
- Text color: White
- Background color: Red
- Style: Bold
Click OK. Any line containing those words will now flash a white-on-red warning.
Prioritize Your Rules
Rules are evaluated from top to bottom. Put your "ERROR" rules above your "INFO" rules. If a line matches both, the first rule wins (unless you check "Combine with previous").
Example Highlight Rules (Common Use Cases)
| Keyword/Pattern | Typical Color | Purpose |
|----------------|---------------|---------|
| ERROR, FATAL | Red background + white text | Immediate attention |
| WARNING, WARN | Yellow text | Caution |
| SUCCESS, OK, PASS | Green text | Positive status |
| INFO | Cyan text | General information |
| DEBUG | Gray text | Low priority |
| [0-9]+ ms | Blue text | Highlight durations |
| FAILED, Exception, NullPointer | Red text + bold | Errors |
| TODO, FIXME | Magenta text | Reminders |
Part 5: Managing Multiple Highlight Sets for Different Roles
One size rarely fits all. Create multiple highlight sets and toggle them based on your task.
| Highlight Set Name | Use Case | Typical Rules |
|-------------------|----------|----------------|
| Web Dev | Nginx/Apache logs | Status codes, SQL queries, PHP errors |
| Security Admin | Auth logs, firewall logs | Failed logins, port scans, sudo commands |
| Database Admin | MySQL/PostgreSQL | Slow queries, deadlocks, replication errors |
| Kubernetes | kubectl get pods | CrashLoopBackOff, Pending, ImagePullBackOff |
| Network Engineer | Cisco/Juniper configs | Interface up/down, BGP neighbor changes |