How to keep processes running after ending ssh session?

Option 1: nohup
The best way is often the simplest.

nohup long-running-command &

It was made specifically for this, it even logs stdout to nohup.log.

man nohup

Option 2: bg + disown

ctrl+z

bg

disown -h

4 years ago

You could do that by using screen.

Type man screen to find out more or read this screen man page.

Simple scenario:

ssh into your remote box. Type screen Then start the process you want.

Press Ctrl-A then Ctrl-D. This will "detach" your screen session but leave your processes running. You can now log out of the remote box.

If you want to come back later, log on again and type screen -r This will "resume" your screen session, and you can see the output of your process.

4 years ago

I was stuck in a large mv so I wasn't in a position to stop the process, setup screen and then start it again. I managed to exit the SSH session with the process running by essentially doing the following steps:

Establish SSH connection: ssh user@host
Run the desired command to start the process
Press Ctrl+Z to pause the process
Run bg to put the paused process in the background and resume it.
Run disown [pid] (process ID is optional, defaults to last process) to disown the process. To get a list of jobs simply type jobs before.
Exit the SSH session by running logout.
Usage of the disown command:

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

              Without  options,  remove  each jobspec from the table of active

              jobs.  If jobspec is not present, and neither the -a nor the  -r

              option  is  supplied, the current job is used.  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  supplied,  the  -a  option

              means  to  remove or mark all jobs; the -r option without a job?

              spec argument restricts operation to running jobs.   The  return

              value is 0 unless a jobspec does not specify a valid job. 

4 years ago