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I am running on a python script on Putty using & at the end of the command. When I checked ps -p processid, it showed some name under TTY. After some time internet got disconnected. After connecting back, I check the process status using ps -p processid but this time I found '?' under TTY. Does this mean my script broke?

blackmamba
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1 Answers1

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No, it only means that the TTY, which the script was started from, was closed in the meantime.

If you want to know more about the status, look into the STAT column:

It shows the status of the process. S stands for sleeping: the process is waiting for something to happen. Z stands for a zombied process. A zombied processes is one whose parent has died, leaving the child processes behind. This is not a good thing. D stands for a process that has entered an uninterruptible sleep. Often, these processes refuse to die even when passed a SIGKILL. You can read more about SIGKILL later in the next section on kill . W stands for paging. A dead process is marked with an X. A process marked T is traced, or stopped. R means that the process is runable.

source: http://www.slackbook.org/html/process-control-ps.html

lxg
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    That means my script is still running and would produce results, right? Because I see TIME column getting incremented. – blackmamba Sep 02 '14 at 21:47
  • Correct. I updated my post with info about the STAT column. Also, you should be able to interact with the process with process control tools like `kill`. Unfortunately, you cannot foreground the process again, once the original shell was closed. – lxg Sep 02 '14 at 21:48
  • I have 'R' under STAT column. What does it mean when you say "Unfortunately, you cannot foreground the process again, once the original shell was closed."? – blackmamba Sep 02 '14 at 21:50
  • `R` means that the process is actively doing stuff, i.e. it's not a zombie, and it's not slepping either. I mentioned the “cannot foreground” thing in case you wondered if you could foreground the process with something like `fg`. – lxg Sep 02 '14 at 22:01
  • I see the script is still running because the resultant file size is incrementing. But when I check the process id using ps -p , it is coming out to be blank. What does this indicate? – blackmamba Sep 03 '14 at 03:32
  • Hm, I don't know, could be several reasons. You could check with `ps ax | grep SCRIPT_NAME` if there's a process with your name. Otherwise, I'd suggest to start a new SO question, because it would be too complex to discuss in the comments. – lxg Sep 03 '14 at 07:36