Running jobs in the background with bg

If you're running a job that doesn't require input from you, consider running it in the background using bg (Code Listing 9.6). In doing so, you can keep the program running while working on other UNIX activities at the same time.

To run jobs in the background with bg:

1.
jobs
At the shell prompt, type jobs to see the list of all jobs, running or stopped. Note the job numbers on the left.
2.
bg 2
Type bg, followed by the number of the job you want to run in the background (Code Listing 9.6).

Tip

If you want to put the most recently suspended job into the background, just type bg (without the number) at the prompt.

Tip

You can also put jobs directly into the background without first suspending them. Just ...

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