Process Group

Definitions

1. A collection of one or more processes in a Unix-like OS that share a process group ID (PGID), allowing signals to be sent to the entire group at once. Process groups are used for job control — when you Ctrl+C a shell pipeline, the SIGINT is delivered to every process in the foreground process group.

   In plain English: A set of related programs that the operating system treats as a unit, so you can stop or signal all of them at once.

   Example: "We kill the entire process group so the child processes don't get orphaned when the parent shuts down."

Related Terms

• Microkernel
• Named Pipe
• Page Cache
• POSIX
• Preemptive Scheduling
• Signal Handler
• User Space
• Kill Dash Nine