1KILL(1) Linux Programmer's Manual KILL(1)
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6 kill - terminate a process
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9 kill [ -s signal | -p ] [ -a ] [ -- ] pid ...
10 kill -l [ signal ]
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13 The command kill sends the specified signal to the specified process or
14 process group. If no signal is specified, the TERM signal is sent.
15 The TERM signal will kill processes which do not catch this signal.
16 For other processes, it may be necessary to use the KILL (9) signal,
17 since this signal cannot be caught.
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19 Most modern shells have a builtin kill function, with a usage rather
20 similar to that of the command described here. The `-a' and `-p'
21 options, and the possibility to specify pids by command name is a local
22 extension.
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25 pid... Specify the list of processes that kill should signal. Each pid
26 can be one of five things:
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29 n where n is larger than 0. The process with pid n will be
30 signaled.
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32 0 All processes in the current process group are signaled.
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34 -1 All processes with pid larger than 1 will be signaled.
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36 -n where n is larger than 1. All processes in process group
37 n are signaled. When an argument of the form `-n' is
38 given, and it is meant to denote a process group, either
39 the signal must be specified first, or the argument must
40 be preceded by a `--' option, otherwise it will be taken
41 as the signal to send.
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43 commandname
44 All processes invoked using that name will be signaled.
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46 -s signal
47 Specify the signal to send. The signal may be given as a signal
48 name or number.
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50 -l Print a list of signal names. These are found in
51 /usr/include/linux/signal.h
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53 -a Do not restrict the commandname-to-pid conversion to processes
54 with the same uid as the present process.
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56 -p Specify that kill should only print the process id (pid) of the
57 named processes, and not send any signals.
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60 bash(1), tcsh(1), kill(2), sigvec(2), signal(7)
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63 Taken from BSD 4.4. The ability to translate process names to process
64 ids was added by Salvatore Valente <svalente@mit.edu>.
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68Linux Utilities 14 October 1994 KILL(1)