Process management

Last reviewed May 28, 2026 Content v20260528

Track mode

none

Means

Read / quiz

Reading

~1 min

Level

intermediate

This lesson

This lesson teaches Process management: the syntax, patterns, and safety habits you need before advancing in Bash.

Teams still ship Process management in Bash codebases—skipping it leaves gaps in debugging and code reviews.

You will apply Process management in contexts like: CI jobs, server maintenance, local dev automation, and Git hooks.

Read each lesson, copy bash examples into your own terminal, and complete the lesson MCQs—there is no in-browser runner for security reasons.

Toward the end of the track—consolidate before interview prep and production checklist lessons.

Bash scripts start, monitor, and stop processes. Know signals, PIDs, and foreground/background control before managing servers.

Listing processes

ps aux | head
pgrep -l bash
pid=$$
echo "this shell pid=$pid"

$$ is current shell PID—useful for unique temp files.

# SIGTERM (15) polite stop; SIGKILL (9) force
kill 12345
kill -9 12345

Try SIGTERM first; SIGKILL cannot be caught—last resort for stuck processes.

nohup long-task.sh > task.log 2>&1 &
disown

nohup keeps running after logout—still prefer systemd for production services.

Q: SIGTERM vs SIGKILL?
A: TERM allows cleanup; KILL forces immediate termination.
Q: What is $$?
A: Current shell process ID.

Tip: Prefer systemd units over nohup for production daemons.

$$?: PID of current shell.
SIGTERM vs SIGKILL?: TERM allows graceful stop; KILL forces immediate termination.

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