---
title: "pause"
description: "The pause command description and usage"
keywords: "cgroups, container, suspend, SIGSTOP"
---

<!-- This file is maintained within the docker/docker Github
     repository at https://github.com/docker/docker/. Make all
     pull requests against that repo. If you see this file in
     another repository, consider it read-only there, as it will
     periodically be overwritten by the definitive file. Pull
     requests which include edits to this file in other repositories
     will be rejected.
-->

# pause

```markdown
Usage:  docker pause CONTAINER [CONTAINER...]

Pause all processes within one or more containers

Options:
      --help   Print usage
```

The `docker pause` command suspends all processes in a container. On Linux,
this uses the cgroups freezer. Traditionally, when suspending a process the
`SIGSTOP` signal is used, which is observable by the process being suspended.
With the cgroups freezer the process is unaware, and unable to capture,
that it is being suspended, and subsequently resumed. On Windows, only Hyper-V
containers can be paused.

See the
[cgroups freezer documentation](https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/cgroup-v1/freezer-subsystem.txt)
for further details.
