Unix process- and task-management-related software

cron is a time-based job scheduler. A scheduled job is known as a cron job. Although typically used to automate system maintenance and administration it can be used to automate any task. is most suitable for scheduling repetitive tasks as scheduling a one-time task can be accomplished via at.

standard UNIX utility

systemd is a software suite for system and service management on Linux built to unify service configuration and behavior across Linux distributions. Its main component is an init system used to bootstrap user space and manage user processes. It also provides various daemons and utilities, including device management, login management, network connection management, and event logging. The name systemd adheres to the Unix convention of naming daemons by appending the letter d, and also plays on the French phrase Système D (a person's ability to quickly adapt and improvise in the face of problems

command in several OSes to terminate a process

thumb|Version 7 Unix: listing, showing and thumb|Version 7 Unix: contents of an Bourne shell script

standard UNIX utility

task manager program found in many Unix-like operating systems. It produces an ordered list of running processes selected by user-specified criteria, and updates it periodically

chroot is a shell command and a system call on Unix and Unix-like operating systems that changes the apparent root directory for the current running process and its children. A program that is run in such a modified environment cannot name (and therefore normally cannot access) files outside the designated directory tree. The term chroot may refer to the system call or the command-line utility. The modified environment is called a chroot jail. thumb|Chroot: from Gentoo to Ubuntu

shell command in various operating systems

command in the Unix operating systems

A runlevel is a mode of operation in the computer operating systems that implements Unix System V-style initialization. Conventionally, seven runlevels exist, numbered from zero to six. S is sometimes used as a synonym for one of the levels. Only one runlevel is executed on startup; run levels are not executed one after another (i.e. only runlevel 2, 3, or 4 is executed, not more of them sequentially or in any other order).

htop is an interactive system monitor process viewer and process manager. It is designed as an alternative to the Unix program top.

command of many operating system command line interpreters and scripting languages

killall is a command line utility available on Unix-like systems. There are two very different implementations.

standard UNIX utility

former event-based replacement for the traditional init daemon

command which pauses until execution of a background process has ended

(see ) is a command-line utility initially written for use with the Solaris 7 operating system in 1998. It has since been reimplemented for Linux and some BSDs.

pgrep is a command-line utility initially written for use with the Solaris 7 operating system by Mike Shapiro. It has since been available in illumos and reimplemented for the Linux and BSDs (DragonFly BSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD). It searches for all the named processes that can be specified as extended regular expression patterns, and—by default—returns their process ID. Alternatives include pidof (finds process ID given a program name) and ps.

OpenRC is a dependency-based init system for Unix-like computer operating systems. It was created by Roy Marples, a NetBSD developer who was also active in the Gentoo project.

procedure to turn off the computer

thumb|321x321px|Runit booting Void Linux

anacron is a computer program that performs periodic command scheduling, which is traditionally done by cron, but without assuming that the system is running continuously. Thus, it can be used to control the execution of daily, weekly, and monthly jobs (or anything with a period of n days) on systems that don't run 24 hours a day. anacron was originally conceived and implemented by Christian Schwarz in Perl, for the Unix operating system. It was later rewritten in C by Itai Tzur; maintainers have included Sean 'Shaleh' Perry and Pascal Hakim.

standard UNIX utility

right|thumb|pstree output in FreeBSD pstree is a Linux command that shows the running processes as a tree. It is used as a more visual alternative to the ps command. The root of the tree is either init or the process with the given pid. It can also be installed in other Unix systems.

sysctl is a software mechanism in some Unix-like operating systems that reads and modifies the attributes of the system kernel such as its version number, maximum limits, and security settings. It is available both as a system call for compiled programs, and an administrator command for interactive use and scripting. Linux additionally exposes sysctl as a virtual file system.

launchd is an init and operating system service management daemon created by Apple Inc. as part of macOS, iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, tvOS, and visionOS to replace its BSD-style init and SystemStarter. There have been efforts to port launchd to FreeBSD and derived systems.

daemontools is a process supervision toolkit written by Daniel J. Bernstein as an alternative to other system initialization and process supervision tools, such as Init.

free tool from Windows Sysinternals, part of the Microsoft TechNet website.

component of Solaris