Starting a Background Process

If you have programs that you want to run while you continue to work in the shell, you can place the programs in the background. To place a program in the background at the time you run the program, type an ampersand (&) at the end of the command line, like this:

find /home/ubuntu/ -name example.txt > search_results.txt &

Running find in the background

The ampersand (&) runs that command line in the background. Notice that the job number, [1], and process ID number, 16398, are displayed when the command is launched. To check which commands you have running in the background, use the jobs command, as shown.

In this example, the find command completes very quickly, so when we run jobs it shows as complete. However, other commands that take much longer, or have no natural end point without manual termination, will show a different status, such as Running