What is the purpose of the SIGCONT signal?

• A. It resumes a stopped process
• B. It kills a process
• C. It reboots the system
• D. It suspends a running process

Answer: (A)

Signals are a way for the system to control what a running program does. Some signals pause a process (such as from job control). SIGCONT is the signal that resumes a process that has been stopped. When a process is stopped, it’s in a suspended state; delivering SIGCONT wakes it up and allows it to continue executing from where it left off. This is why the option describing that it resumes a stopped process is the correct one. It isn’t used to kill a process, reboot the system, or suspend a running process—those actions involve other signals or commands. In practice, shells use SIGCONT to continue background or stopped jobs, bringing them back into runnable state.