[plug] Stopped Jobs

Matt Kemner zombie at wasp.net.au
Thu Aug 31 16:32:48 WST 2000


On Thu, 31 Aug 2000, Earnshaw, Mike wrote:

> Recently received a message about "stopped jobs" when I dropped back to
> user "mode" from su root.

Welcome to the world of Unix :)

That means you were running a program, then suspended it with Control-Z

Unix allows you stop/start jobs and even run them in the background
eg if you're deleting a large directory structure you can type

rm -rf <directory>
^Z        to suspend it
bg        to put it in the background

or you could just type "rm -rf <directory> &" to put it in the background
immediately..

To go back to a stopped (or background) job type "fg" 

If you have multilple jobs, you can use the job number, type "jobs" for a
list.

> "list" of jobs. What puzzled me was when I ran at, I got "garbled time".

at requires a time/date as a parameter
eg.

at 17:00
echo GO HOME!
^D

to echo "GO HOME!" at 5pm (output mailed to you)

For more info, go grab a book (or online docs) on basic unix stuff.
(I've found "unix for dummies" to be great for this sort of stuff)

 - Matt




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