Job Control
Unix allows you to suspend a program you are running and then go back
to it later on. This is called "job control". When you
are using a program interactively, it is said to be in the
"foreground"; once it is stopped (with [CTRL-Z]) it is in the
"background". At this point you can put the job back into the
foreground by typing "fg", or tell it to continue to run in the
background with "bg". The shell gives a number to each job that is
running in the background or that has been stopped. To see the list of
current jobs, type "jobs". Each job will be listed, preceded by its
number. The job most recently stopped is referred to as the current job
and will have a + sign in front of it. You can kill a job by typing:
where n is the number of the job. A job left running in the background
will stop when it needs input from the terminal. If you have trouble
logging out because of "stopped jobs",
see the section on the
"There are stopped jobs." error.
Click here to go to the next section.
Or click here to go to the
top of the chapter.