KILL(1)                                             Linux Programmer's Manual                                            KILL(1)



NAME
       kill - terminate a process

SYNOPSIS
       kill [-s signal|-p] [--] pid...
       kill -l [signal]

DESCRIPTION
       The  command  kill  sends the specified signal to the specified process or process group.  If no signal is specified, the
       TERM signal is sent.  The TERM signal will kill processes which do not catch this signal.  For other processes, it may be
       necessary to use the KILL (9) signal, since this signal cannot be caught.

       Most  modern  shells have a builtin kill function, with a usage rather similar to that of the command described here. The
       `-a' and `-p' options, and the possibility to specify pids by command name is a local extension.

       If sig is 0, then no signal is sent, but error checking is still performed.

OPTIONS
       pid... Specify the list of processes that kill should signal.  Each pid can be one of five things:


              n      where n is larger than 0.  The process with pid n will be signaled.

              0      All processes in the current process group are signaled.

              -1     All processes with pid larger than 1 will be signaled.

              -n     where n is larger than 1.  All processes in process group n are signaled.  When an  argument  of  the  form
                     `-n' is given, and it is meant to denote a process group, either the signal must be specified first, or the
                     argument must be preceded by a `--' option, otherwise it will be taken as the signal to send.

              commandname
                     All processes invoked using that name will be signaled.

       -s signal
              Specify the signal to send.  The signal may be given as a signal name or number.

       -l     Print a list of signal names.  These are found in /usr/include/linux/signal.h

       -a     Do not restrict the commandname-to-pid conversion to processes with the same uid as the present process.

       -p     Specify that kill should only print the process id (pid) of the named processes, and not send any signals.

SEE ALSO
       bash(1), tcsh(1), kill(2), sigvec(2), signal(7)

AUTHOR
       Taken from BSD 4.4.  The ability to translate process  names  to  process  ids  was  added  by  Salvatore  Valente  <sva-
       lenteATmit.edu>.

AVAILABILITY
       The  kill  command  is part of the util-linux-ng package and is available from ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-
       linux-ng/.



Linux Utilities                                          14 October 1994                                                 KILL(1)