Linux commands: bg
A quick guide to the `bg` command, used to resume a job that's been suspended
When a command is running you can suspend it using ctrl-Z
.
The command will immediately stop, and you get back to the shell terminal.
You can resume the execution of the command in the background, so it will keep running but it will not prevent you from doing other work in the terminal.
In this example I have 2 commands stopped:
I can run bg 1
to resume in the background the execution of the job #1.
I could have also said bg
without any option, as the default is to pick the job #1 in the list.
The
bg
command works on Linux, macOS, WSL, and anywhere you have a UNIX environment
→ I wrote 17 books to help you become a better developer, download them all at $0 cost by joining my newsletter
→ JOIN MY CODING BOOTCAMP, an amazing cohort course that will be a huge step up in your coding career - covering React, Next.js - next edition February 2025