KILL(1) | General Commands Manual | KILL(1) |
kill
— terminate
or signal a process
kill |
[-s signal_name]
pid ... |
kill |
-l [exit_status] |
kill |
- signal_name
pid ... |
kill |
- signal_number
pid ... |
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]If no operand is given, display the names of all the signals.
-s
signal_nameSIGTERM
.-
signal_nameSIGTERM
.-
signal_numberSIGTERM
.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.
The kill
utility exits 0 on
success, and >0 if an error occurs.
Forcibly terminate process ID 1234:
$ kill -9 1234
Send the init(8) process the hangup signal, instructing it to re-read ttys(5):
# kill -HUP 1
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.
A kill
command appeared in
Version 3 AT&T UNIX.
February 9, 2020 | OpenBSD-6.8 |