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NAME

kill — terminate or signal a process

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

The kill utility sends a signal to the process(es) specified by the pid operand(s). If no signal is specified, SIGTERM is used.

Only the superuser may send signals to other users' processes.

The options are as follows:

-l [exit_status]

Display the name of the signal corresponding to exit_status. exit_status may be the exit status of a command killed by a signal (see the special sh(1) parameter ‘?’) or a signal number.

If no operand is given, display the names of all the signals.

-s signal_name

A symbolic signal name specifying the signal to be sent instead of the default SIGTERM.

-signal_name

A symbolic signal name specifying the signal to be sent instead of the default SIGTERM.

-signal_number

A non-negative decimal integer specifying the signal to be sent instead of the default SIGTERM.

The following PIDs have special meanings:

Some of the more commonly used signals:

For a more complete list, consult the sigaction(2) manual page.

A signal number of 0 (kill -0 pid) checks the validity of a certain PID, to see if it exists. An exit code of 0 means that the specified process exists.

EXIT STATUS

The kill utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.

EXAMPLES

Forcibly terminate process ID 1234:

Send the inetd(8) daemon the hangup signal, instructing it to re-read its configuration from /etc/inetd.conf:

SEE ALSO

csh(1), ksh(1), pkill(1), ps(1), kill(2), sigaction(2)

STANDARDS

The kill utility is compliant with the IEEE Std 1003.1-2008 (“POSIX.1”) specification.

The -signal_name and -signal_number syntax is marked by IEEE Std 1003.1-2008 (“POSIX.1”) as being an X/Open System Interfaces option.

kill also exists as a built-in to csh(1) and ksh(1), though with a different syntax.

HISTORY

A kill command appeared in Version 3 AT&T UNIX.