How do I put an already running process under nohup

Question

I have a process that is already running for a long time and don't want to end it.

How do I put it under nohup (i.e. how do I cause it to continue running even if I close the terminal?)

Answer 1

The command to seperate a running job from the shell ( = makes it nohup) is disown and a basic shell-command.

From bash-manpage (man bash):

disown [-ar] [-h] [jobspec ...]

Without options, each jobspec is removed from the table of active jobs. If the -h option is given, each jobspec is not removed from the table, but is marked so that SIGHUP is not sent to the job if the shell receives a SIGHUP. If no jobspec is present, and neither the -a nor the -r option is supplied, the current job is used. If no jobspec is supplied, the -a option means to remove or mark all jobs; the -r option without a jobspec argument restricts operation to running jobs. The return value is 0 unless a jobspec does not specify a valid job.

That means, that a simple

disown

will remove all jobs from the job-table and makes them nohup

Answer 2

Using the Job Control of bash to send the process into the background:

> [crtl]+z
> bg

And as Sam mentioned you have to execute disown to avoid killing the process after you close the terminal.

disown

Answer 3

these are good answers above, I just wanted to add a clarification, You can't disown a pid or process, you disown a Job, and there is an important distinction. A Job is something that is a notion of a process that is attached to a shell. Therefore, you have to through the job into the background (not suspend it) and then disown it.

issue: % jobs

[1] running java

[2] suspended vi

% disown %1

See http://www.quantprinciple.com/invest/index.php/docs/tipsandtricks/unix/jobcontrol/ for a more detailed discussion of Unix Job Control.

Answer 4

Good tip it helped me a lot. Keep Rocking!!!