6 
$ help suspend
suspend: suspend [-f]
    Suspend shell execution.

    Suspend the execution of this shell until it receives a SIGCONT signal.

How should I send a SIGCONT signal to a shell suspended by suspend in a gnome terminal tab?

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2 Answers 2

Reset to default
12

The same way as with any other suspended process: With fg, %, or any other similar job control builtin.

zsh% bash
bash$ suspend
zsh: suspended (signal)  bash
zsh% jobs
[1]  + suspended (signal)  bash
zsh% fg
[1]  + continued  bash
bash$
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2
  • 1
    Note that fg will only work in the case of a subshell (i.e., job suspended by the current shell). Also, suspend will happily suspend the last shell in the chain without -f if it isn't a login shell (as is the case with a normal (local) terminal emulator shell, which is how I tested my answer). Sending a SIGCONT from another shell will work in both cases. (See my answer.)
    – type_outcast
    Commented Dec 2, 2015 at 7:52
  • @type_outcast I removed the part about suspending the last shell, since it wasn't really important, so not worth adding a clarification and making the answer longer.
    – Mikel
    Commented Dec 2, 2015 at 14:10
11

Send SIGCONT

The only way to resume the suspended shell is to send the SIGCONT signal, presumably from another shell. You'll need to know the PID (process ID) of the shell.

kill -cont $shellpid

If you don't know the PID already, try this:

ps x | grep bash

For example, when I suspended my shell, I saw this with ps x | grep bash:

 6147 pts/14   S+     0:00 grep --color bash
 6172 pts/14   Ss     0:01 /bin/bash
15085 pts/0    Ss+    0:00 /bin/bash
15121 pts/12   Ts+    0:01 /bin/bash

Look at that third column. The shell you want is the one with the T, and that one has a PID (first column) of 15121. Of course the PID in your case will differ; this was just an example. Once you find the PID (let's say it is 15121), then run:

kill -cont 15121
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3
  • What does the "T" mean?
    – Itachi
    Commented Aug 30, 2017 at 3:49
  • 1
    The T status in ps(1) indicates a stopped process, which in this case was stopped via the suspend builtin.
    – type_outcast
    Commented Sep 1, 2017 at 0:22
  • C-z on my GUI emacs suspends it, but emacs shows up like this with ps aux | grep emacs: gauthier 21308 0.5 1.3 453984 101564 ? Sl 15:03 0:07 /usr/bin/emacs I'm not sure why it says Sl and not T?
    – Gauthier
    Commented Feb 2, 2021 at 14:25

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