Aaron Kelly's Blog

Yes there is the method of using CTRL+Z, bg, fg, jobs…

But by far the best solution I have for running long-running jobs in the background is this:

nohup ./encode.sh &> log.log &

Explanation:

• nohup - allows a process to continue running in the background even after a user exits the shell.
• ./encode.sh - the script that is being run
• &> log.log redirect all STDOUT/STDERR to a logfile
• & - put the process in the background

Benefits:

• the logfile can be tailed
• the process can be viewed using a utility such as top

Killing a nohup job can sometimes be tricky, using kill [PID] won’t work. Instead, list the jobs that are running by typing jobs, then kill the job number by typing kill %[JOB_NUMBER]