iLAMP

Manage multiple jobs on a single terminal

As a multiuser system, Linux affords users the abilities to log in more than once as well as run multiple commands at the same time. While you can easily accomplish this on the desktop using multiple terminal windows, you can also do it on a single terminal, either one that's physically in front of you or via ssh.


The bash shell allows users to run commands, suspend them, place them into the background, and bring background jobs to the foreground.

To suspend a currently running job, press [Ctrl]Z, which opens a shell prompt. To resume running the job in the foreground, enter fg. To place the job in the background, type bg.

To see what jobs are currently running, use the jobs command, which returns output similar to the following:

$ jobs
[1]- Stopped top
[2]+ Stopped man info

This shows that both the top and man commands are running in the background. The top command has a job ID of 1, and the man command has a job ID of 2.

To bring the top command to the foreground, execute the following:

$ fg %1

This tells the fg command to bring job ID 1 to the foreground. You can represent the second job (which has an ID of 2) as %2.

To kill the man command without first bringing it to the foreground, execute the following:

kill %2

Being able to run multiple commands, all controlled through one terminal, is exceptionally useful. For example, this can come in handy when you're compiling something and wish to background it in order to read some documentation or a man page--or even just execute another command.