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Linux Pocket Guide
book

Linux Pocket Guide

by Daniel J. Barrett
February 2004
Beginner content levelBeginner
200 pages
5h 40m
English
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Content preview from Linux Pocket Guide

Job Control

jobs

List your jobs

&

Run a job in the background

^Z

Suspend the current (foreground) job

suspend

Suspend a shell

fg

Unsuspend a job: bring it into the foreground

bg

Make a suspended job run in the background

All Linux shells have job control: the ability to run programs in the background (multitasking behind the scenes) and foreground (running as the active process at your shell prompt). A job is simply the shell’s unit of work. When you run a command interactively, your current shell tracks it as a job. When the command completes, the associated job disappears. Jobs are at a higher level than Linux processes; the Linux operating system knows nothing about them. They are merely constructs of the shell. Some important vocabulary about job control is:

foreground job

Running in a shell, occupying the shell prompt so you cannot run another command

background job

Running in a shell, but not occupying the shell prompt, so you can run another command in the same shell

suspend

To stop a foreground job temporarily

resume

To cause a suspended job to start running again

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Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9780596806347Errata Page