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7
Controlling and Managing 
Processes
On a typical Linux server, there can be over a hundred processes running at any 
given time. The purposes of these processes range from system services, such as the 
Network Time Protocol
 (
NTP
) service, to processes that serve information to others, 
such as the Apache web server. As an administrator of Ubuntu servers, you will 
need to be able to manage these processes, as well as manage the resources available 
to them. In this chapter, we'll take a look at process management, including the 
ps
 
command, managing job control commands, and more.
As we work through these concepts, we will cover the following topics:
•  Managing jobs
•  Understanding the 
ps
 command
•  Changing the priority of processes
•  Dealing with misbehaving processes
•  Managing system processes
•  Scheduling tasks with 
cron
To begin our exploration of managing processes, let's take a look first at managing 
jobs. Not only will this help us understand the concepts better, but it will also 
provide us with a better understanding of backgrounding and foregrounding.

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Controlling and Managing Processes