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Job Control
This tip shows you how to use the basics of job control in the shell by putting processes in the background and returning them to the foreground.
Whenever you execute a command at the command line, that's a job that has to be run. Most commands execute quickly and return you to the command line. But some commands (for example, using cp to copy a large amount of data), can take a long time. When that happens, your terminal will be unaccessible unless you put the job in the background.
To put a job in the background, type ctrl-z to suspend the job (and regain control of your terminal), and then type bg to put the job in the background.
Code Listing 1
% cp file backup/file Ctrl-z zsh: 1398 suspended cp file backup/file % bg [1] + continued cp file backup/file
Alternatively, you can put the job in the background from the start using the & sign.
Code Listing 2
% cp file backup/file & [1] 1608
To see your running jobs you can use jobs. If you need to stop a job, you can use kill %jobnumber
Code Listing 3
% cp file backup/file & [1] 1751 % jobs [1] + running cp file backup/file % kill %1 // no news is good news
From http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/20040209-newsletter.xml
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