Run script in background?

Question

Simple question: Is there a way to run a script in the background with out terminal running?

More detail and background: I had an app that read an apps .log file and

Answer 1

The answer depends on if you need to be able to re-connect to the process after exiting the shell. If the process is non-interactive and can simply be left alone, then "nohup program &" should do the trick. But that won't let you continue to interact with the program after you've closed the shell.

If it's a interactive program, then your best bet is to use screen or one of the other terminal-multiplexers. You start "screen" which gives you a new shell, in this you start whatever program you want, the usual way, say "nano myfile.txt".

When you want to close the shell, but leave the program running, you press C-a d ('Detach') to detach from screen. it keeps running, but in the background, and will keep running even if you log out.

When you then later want to reconnect to screen you open a new shell and type "screen -r" (reconnect), this leaves you right where you where.

Screen also lets you run several different shells in a single terminal-window and is a neat tool overall. Check it out.