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KILL (1)

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kill - terminate a process

CONTENTS

Synopsis
Description
See Also

kill [-signal|-s signal] processid ...
kill -l [status]

Kill sends signal 15 (terminate) to the specified processes. If a signal number or symbolic signal name preceded by '-' or -s is given as first argument, that signal is sent instead of terminate (see signal(2)). This will kill processes that do not catch the signal; in particular 'kill -9 ...' is a sure kill.

By convention, if process number 0 is specified, all members in the process group (i.e. processes resulting from the current login) are signaled. If process number -1 is specified, all processes for which the user is permitted to send a signal are signaled. Otherwise if the process number is negative, it is treated as a process group id, and all processes in that group are signaled.

With the -l option, all available symbolic signal names are listed. If the status argument is present, the symbolic signal name corresponding to status, interpreted either as a signal number or as an exit value as given by the '$?' shell parameter, is printed.

A symbolic signal name consists of the name of the signal in the 'C' language without the 'SIG' prefix, e.g. 'QUIT' for 'SIGQUIT'.

The killed processes must belong to the current user unless he is the super-user.

The process number of an asynchronous process started with '&' is reported by the shell. Process numbers can also be found by using ps(1).

ps(1), kill(2), signal(2)