How to Pause/Resume a process in Linux

Question

I record my program until it closes.

Start Command:

cvlc screen:// --screen-left=0 --screen-top=0 --screen-width=1280 --screen-height=960 --screen-fps=30 \
--sout '#transcode{vcodec=mp2v, vb=800, scale=1, acodec=none}:file{mux=ts, dst=your_video_path_to_be_saved}'

Stop Command:

kill -9 pgrep vlc

That works well, now I need to implement pause method to this program. I need to kill program at pause method then start it on resume method and append new video to older one. How can i do it?

VLC Wiki: Merge

Doesn’t the ‘stop’ command need to be `kill -9 $(pgrep vlc)` - or perhaps better, use `pidof` instead of `pgrep`? Or you can do away with the process searching step and use `killall`. — mwfearnley, Oct 20 '17 at 22:26

score 57 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 08 '15 at 16:33

57

To pause the process

kill -STOP <PID>

To resume it

kill -CONT <PID>

answered Jan 08 '15 at 16:33

Arnab Nandy

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Just for pedantry, the signal names this sends to the process in question are SIGSTOP and SIGCONT. – pmarreck Nov 17 '21 at 16:17

score 19 · Answer 2 · edited Jan 14 '19 at 11:48

19

Ctrl + z (SIGTSTP) from the shell stops (nowaday we will probably use the term "suspend", which the man page of bash does) a process. The process can be continued ("resumed") with the commands fg (in foreground) or bg (in background).

kill -9 doesn't stop a process, it kills it (SIGKILL). I mention it, because wording here is ambiguous.

edited Jan 14 '19 at 11:48

Georgy

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answered Jan 09 '15 at 09:02

Peter

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How to Pause/Resume a process in Linux

2 Answers2