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3.4.3. Managing Processes
The ps aux command lists the processes currently running and helps to identify them by showing their PID. Once you know the PID of a process, the kill -signal pid command allows you to send it a signal (if you own the process). Several signals exist; most commonly used are TERM (a request to terminate gracefully) and KILL (a forced kill).
The command interpreter can also run programs in the background if the command is followed by “&”. By using the ampersand, you resume control of the shell immediately even though the command is still running (hidden from view as a background process). The jobs command lists the processes running in the background; running fg %job-number (for foreground) restores a job to the foreground. When a command is running in the foreground (either because it was started normally, or brought back to the foreground with fg), the Control+Z key combination pauses the process and resumes control of the command line. The process can then be restarted in the background with bg %job-number (for background).