Job Control

Core Idea

The shell can stop, background, foreground, and list jobs attached to that shell.

Job control belongs to one shell session. It is useful for short experiments, not for keeping important work alive after disconnection.

Practice Alone

Use Ctrl-Z, jobs, bg, and fg on harmless commands.

sleep 60

Press Ctrl-Z, then run:

jobs
bg
jobs
fg

Press Ctrl-C to stop the foreground sleep.

Watch Out

• Ctrl-Z stops a job; it does not end it.
• bg resumes a stopped job in the background.
• fg brings a job back to the foreground.
• Use tmux or systemd for work that must survive SSH disconnects.

Done When

You know when job control is enough and when tmux is safer.

Docs Pointers

• Read jobs, bg, fg, signals, and terminal multiplexing.