Run a program in the background on ubuntu

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#Linux

Run a program in the background on ubuntu

  1. Make it executable: chmod +x program.py
  2. Use no hang up: nohup /path/to/program.py &. nohup keep the program running even in one closes the terminal. python /path/to/program.py & also keeps it running in the terminal in background. But it terminates the program if one logs out. To redirect the output to another file, nohup comp-range-de.py > comp-range-de.out 2>&1& or nohup comp-range-de.py &> comp-range-de.out& for short.
  3. Check the process: ps ax | grep program.py. ps -e can list out all the running programs.

Source: How to run the Python program in the background in Ubuntu machine?

It is very important to understand the output of ps. Here is the man.

PROCESS STATE CODES
       Here are the different values that the s, stat and state output
       specifiers (header "STAT" or "S") will display to describe the state of
       a process.
       D    Uninterruptible sleep (usually IO)
       R    Running or runnable (on run queue)
       S    Interruptible sleep (waiting for an event to complete)
       T    Stopped, either by a job control signal or because it is being
            traced.
       W    paging (not valid since the 2.6.xx kernel)
       X    dead (should never be seen)
       Z    Defunct ("zombie") process, terminated but not reaped by its
            parent.

       For BSD formats and when the stat keyword is used, additional
       characters may be displayed:
       <    high-priority (not nice to other users)
       N    low-priority (nice to other users)
       L    has pages locked into memory (for real-time and custom IO)
       s    is a session leader
       l    is multi-threaded (using CLONE_THREAD, like NPTL pthreads do)
       +    is in the foreground process group

Meanwhile, another question is how to kill such a process.

xxx@ipython-notebook:~/abc/py$ ps -eaf | grep vacOsc4CompSSConvention-moretol.py
xxx    12921 11369 99 17:05 pts/0    00:04:49 python vacOsc4CompSSConvention-moretol.py
xxx    13040 11369  0 17:10 pts/0    00:00:00 grep --color=auto vacOsc4CompSSConvention-moretol.py
xxx@ipython-notebook:~/abc/py$ kill 12921

Planted: by ;

L Ma (2015). 'Run a program in the background on ubuntu', Datumorphism, 12 April. Available at: https://datumorphism.leima.is/til/programming/run-program-in-background-ubuntu/.