bg

bg, short for background, is used to run a suspended job in the background. When a job is suspended using the ctrl+z keyboard shortcut, it is moved to the background, and you can use the bg command to start it running again in the background. The bg command is useful for running long-running processes in the background and freeing up your terminal for other tasks.

Basic Syntax

bg [job_spec]

Here, job_spec specifies the job to be started in the background. It can be a job ID or a job name.

Useful Examples

Here are some useful examples of the bg command:

• jobs: This displays the list of currently running and suspended jobs along with their job IDs.
• ctrl+z: This suspends the current job and moves it to the background.
• bg: This starts the most recently suspended job in the background.
• bg %1: This starts the job with job ID 1 in the background.
• bg myjob: This starts the job named “myjob” in the background.

Useful Combinations

Here are some useful combinations of the bg command with other Linux commands:

• command &: This starts a command in the background directly without suspending it first.
• nohup command &: This starts a command in the background and prevents it from being terminated when you log out of your terminal.
• fg: This brings a background job back to the foreground.