jobs Command Cheat Sheet

The jobs command displays the status of jobs in the current shell session. A "job" is a process started by the shell.

Synopsis

jobs [options] [jobID...]

Job Control Basics

1. Starting a Background Job (&)

Append & to any command to run it in the background immediately.

sleep 1000 &
# Output: [1] 12345

2. Suspending a Foreground Job (Ctrl+Z)

If you are running a command (e.g., vim or top) and want to pause it to use the terminal: Press Ctrl+Z.

[2]+  Stopped                 vim file.txt

3. Listing Jobs

jobs

[1]-  Running                 sleep 1000 &
[2]+  Stopped                 vim file.txt

Managing Jobs

Foreground (fg)

Bring a job to the foreground.

fg %1      # Bring job 1 to foreground
fg         # Bring "current" (+) job to foreground

Background (bg)

Resume a "Stopped" job in the background (keep it running, but free up the terminal).

bg %2      # Start job 2 in background

Kill a Job

You can use the Job ID with kill.

kill %1

kill -9 %1

Jobs Options

Show PIDs (-l)

List jobs with their Process IDs.

jobs -l

[1]+ 12345 Running                 sleep 1000 &

Show Only PIDs (-p)

Useful for scripting.

jobs -p

12345

Show Running/Stopped Only

jobs -r    # Running only
jobs -s    # Stopped only

Disowning Jobs

If you close the terminal, all jobs usually die (SIGHUP). To prevent this:

disown

Removes the job from the shell's job table. It keeps running but you can no longer control it with fg/bg.

disown %1

nohup

Use nohup before starting the command to ignore SIGHUP signals.

nohup long_script.sh &

Practical Workflow

1. Start a long compile: make &
2. Realize you need to edit a file: vim config.h
3. Forgot to check load: Ctrl+Z (pause vim)
4. Check htop
5. Resume vim: fg

Notes

• Job ID vs PID: %1 is a Job ID (shell specific). 12345 is a PID (kernel global).
• jobs is a shell builtin. It does not work across different terminal tabs.