How to suspend and resume processes
In the bash terminal I can hit Control+Z to suspend any running process… then I can type fg to resume the process.
Is it possible to suspend a process if I only have it’s PID? And if so, what command should I use?
I’m looking for something like:
suspend-process $PID_OF_PROCESS
and then to resume it with
resume-process $PID_OF_PROCESS
You should use the kill command for that.
To be more verbose – you have to specify the right signal, i.e.
$ kill -TSTP $PID_OF_PROCESS
for suspending the process and
$ kill -CONT $PID_OF_PROCESS
for resuming it. Documented at 24.2.5 Job Control Signals.
You can use kill to stop the process.
For a ‘polite’ stop to the process (prefer this for normal use), send SIGTSTP:
kill -TSTP [pid]
For a ‘hard’ stop, send SIGSTOP:
kill -STOP [pid]
Note that if the process you are trying to stop by PID is in your shell’s job table, it may remain visible there, but terminated, until the process is fg‘d again.
To resume execution of the process, sent SIGCONT:
kill -CONT [pid]