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I am using putty to interact with Linux server. I have started a process using putty. The process is running and will take 5-6 hours. I want that process to keep running after I close the putty session. How can I keep that process alive after closing the putty session? I do not want to keep the computer ON all the time. Is there any way to do this?.

11 Answers 11

34

I use screen for that kind of stuff. Actually sometimes I just leave it on quite a while so I can get back to what I was doing.

Update 2021: I also started using tmux lately.

5
  • The process is running now ,is it work for that process?I am asking because the process is on the middle and i do not want to restart it now
    – prakash.panjwani
    Jan 16, 2010 at 15:18
  • +1 for mentioning my undisputed favourite command line tool. It's a gem in situations like this. Jan 16, 2010 at 15:41
  • @Noufal, totally! @prakash, you need to run screen before you can start any processes
    – mtmk
    Jan 16, 2010 at 15:48
  • If you want to connect to several machines it can even be a nice idea to run several screens inside the first screen so you just have to connect to one screen to get access to all your running remotes.
    – Zitrax
    Jan 16, 2010 at 17:26
  • the link does not work anymore
    – Malky.Kid
    Nov 16, 2018 at 22:46
37
^Z
bg %1
disown -h %1

The '-h' makes the process immune to SIGHUP when the session completes.

5
  • 4
    Note that there's no way to 'reown' or 'adopt' the process - once you've done this, you can't ever bring it back to the foreground. If the process is a batch job working to produce some files, though, that shouldn't matter.
    – Tom Anderson
    Jan 16, 2010 at 15:34
  • ...but after running bg %1 the job is scrolling down the page again (in my case an rsync). So how can I then input disown -h %1?
    – Codemonkey
    Aug 3, 2021 at 22:28
  • Though just bg %1 seems to do the job, it certainly is still running after closing the terminal. What's the point of the disown line?
    – Codemonkey
    Aug 4, 2021 at 7:01
  • @Codemonkey You can type input into the shell even when a background job is printing output. It will look weird, but it will work! Aug 6, 2021 at 11:25
  • @Codemonkey When a terminal is closed, it sends a 'hang up' signal (SIGHUP) to the shell, which sends it on to background jobs. Default behaviour is for programs to terminate when they receive a SIGHUP. disown -h tells the shell not to forward the SIGHUP. If you do not need the disown, that might be something to do with your terminal or shell setup, so it does not send SIGHUP, or might be because the program ignores SIGHUP. Aug 6, 2021 at 11:27
22

Use the nohup command. Just prefix it to your command and it will daemonise them so that they won't stop when you log off/terminate your shell session. The standard output will by default be in a file called nohup.out. Check the manual page for nohup(1) for more information.

4
  • the process is running ,is it work for that process?I am asking because the process is on the middle and i do not want to restart it now?
    – prakash.panjwani
    Jan 16, 2010 at 15:16
  • Too late...at least, for normal operations. It wouldn't be altogether surprising to find that if you attach a debugger to the process, and then tweaked it with an appropriate set of system calls, then perhaps you could put it in the background. But it is not what could be recommended - I wouldn't bother, for example, and I have at least some idea of what might be involved. You have two choices now...either stay connected until it finishes, or stop the current process, and restart a new one using nohup. Jan 16, 2010 at 15:19
  • 1
    If you're using bash (and I think zsh), you can use Tom Anderson's solution and disown the process so that it continues to run even when you disconnect. Jan 16, 2010 at 15:40
  • Yup - disown looks to be the way to go for an already running job. It's doable because the shell that started the job can manipulate the properties needed. Jan 16, 2010 at 15:56
5

Start process with nohup "processname" &. You can also detach it with screen or tmux.

5

The above solutions are quite well described, however, none of them worked for me UNTIL I also edited PuTTY configuration to :

Enable TCP keepalives (SO_KEEPALIVE option)

I hadn't seen this anywhere else, and just found it by trial and error.

1

Ctrl+z Send the current process to the background.

Also, you may add & at the end of your command to run in in background

2
  • 4
    Normally, control-z puts the process into a state of suspended animation; the bg command puts it into the background. However, that also keeps the process attached to the terminal, whereas nohup detaches it from the terminal and therefore allows putty to disconnect and the process to survive the disconnection. Jan 16, 2010 at 15:15
  • I found that using '&' to send to the background works with putty, but when I connect using directly ssh from a shell, if I close the connexion, the background process is killed. Any idea of why ?
    – Zardoz89
    Nov 19, 2015 at 8:36
1

if the process is a for nodejs, and it may be your intention since you originally posted this on stackoverflow. I was originally searching for this question myself. I found pm2 and it is amazing. The other answers may help for general putty but if it is node specific this is by far the best answer, as there is built in monitoring and the setup is simply a

$ npm install pm2 -g
$ cd yourappdirectory

"PM2 is a production process manager for Node.js applications with a built-in load balancer. It allows you to keep applications alive forever, to reload them without downtime and to facilitate common system admin tasks.

Starting an application in production mode is as easy as:"

$ pm2 start yourappname.js

"using the save and then freeze command you enable the processes to autostart on reboot"

$ pm2 save
$ pm2 freeze

for monitoring its

$ pm2 monit

and restarts

$ pm2 restart yourappname

also for direct logging information

$ pm2 logs

I now can easily run two putty windows instead of using my digialocean browser window (which I couldnt scroll up on); For more info see the main github

https://github.com/Unitech/pm2

its amazing.

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  • Can you explain a bit more about what pm2 is and what the commands you show do? Please do not respond in comments; edit your answer to make it clearer and more complete. Sep 1, 2019 at 1:47
  • Added a bit more documentation for the community. I wish I would have found pm2 years ago. Sep 1, 2019 at 8:13
0

If you want the program that is contained in the process to always or frequently run in the background, you can code it to separate from the controlling terminal (make such behaviour controllable via an option flag) and run in the background.

That's a long term solution, of course, not for the currently running process.

0

You can use & after the link.

Example:

[localhost ~ ]# wget http://www.link.com/download/download.zip &
1
  • The question wasn't about a link, do you mean add an & sign after the command line?
    – Danny
    Oct 9, 2018 at 14:14
0

How to keep weblogic running after closing putty window:

Simple Steps: after the login through putty follow the below steps:

  1. Go to the directory on the server where the startWebLogic.sh command is located.
  2. Type command screen and press Enter (a new screen will open).
  3. In the new screen type your run command ./startWebLogic.sh.
  4. Press Ctrl+a then press d (without holding Ctrl); you will return back to the previous screen.
  5. When you want to return to your server log screen, type command screen -r.
0

From https://gist.github.com/davydany/d33f4b5e19eab6b805b045b91d3cf858

How to Run a Process in the Background with TMUX

There are times when you need to log off your Linux Desktop, and you want a process to run in the background. TMUX manages this very well.

For this example, let's suppose you're running a long running task like running rspecs on your project and it is 5pm, and you need to go home.

Run Your Process

1. First launch TMUX

$ tmux

2. Run your long running process

$ bundle exec rspec spec

3. Detach from TMUX

Simply press [CTRL]+[b], then [d]. This will detach your session from TMUX

4. Log off

Now you can simply log off

Return to your session

When you return back to your desktop, open a terminal and simply run:

$ tmux attach

OR

$ tmux a

This will attach to your detached TMUX session.

Other Helpful Hints:

  • Create a new tab: [CTRL]+[b], [c]
  • Switch to tab number: [CTRL]+[b], <number>
  • Enable Scrolling up / Page up: [CTRL]+[b], [

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