Chapter 9. Running Scripts and Programs

Chapter contents

• Scheduling one-time jobs

• Scheduling regularly occurring jobs

• Suspending jobs

• Checking job status

• Running jobs in the background

• Running jobs in the foreground

• Controlling job priority

• Timing jobs

• Finding running processes

• Deleting processes

Throughout this book, you've been running scripts and programs by typing in commands and pressing . The commands zoom along to the UNIX system, which responds by obediently doing whatever the command or script dictates. In doing this, you run the commands and scripts—called jobs in this context—right then and there.

You can also, though, complete jobs at specified times, run them on a schedule you set up, or start, stop, or delete them as you choose. Plus, you can find out when they are scheduled to run, time how long they take, or monitor them as they run. Sound cool? Great! Let's take a look....