1KILLALL(1) User Commands KILLALL(1)
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6 killall - kill processes by name
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9 killall [-Z, --context pattern] [-e, --exact] [-g, --process-group]
10 [-i, --interactive] [-o, --older-than TIME] [-q, --quiet] [-r, --reg‐
11 exp] [-s, --signal signal] [-u, --user user] [-v, --verbose]
12 [-w, --wait] [-y, --younger-than TIME] [-I, --ignore-case] [-V, --ver‐
13 sion] [--] name ...
14 killall -l
15 killall -V, --version
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18 killall sends a signal to all processes running any of the specified
19 commands. If no signal name is specified, SIGTERM is sent.
20 Signals can be specified either by name (e.g. -HUP or -SIGHUP) or by
22 number (e.g. -1) or by option -s.
23 If the command name is not regular expression (option -r) and contains
25 a slash (/), processes executing that particular file will be selected
26 for killing, independent of their name.
27 killall returns a zero return code if at least one process has been
29 killed for each listed command, or no commands were listed and at least
30 one process matched the -u and -Z search criteria. killall returns
31 non-zero otherwise.
32 A killall process never kills itself (but may kill other killall pro‐
34 cesses).
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37 -e, --exact
38 Require an exact match for very long names. If a command name
39 is longer than 15 characters, the full name may be unavailable
40 (i.e. it is swapped out). In this case, killall will kill
41 everything that matches within the first 15 characters. With
42 -e, such entries are skipped. killall prints a message for each
43 skipped entry if -v is specified in addition to -e,
44 -I, --ignore-case
46 Do case insensitive process name match.
47 -g, --process-group
49 Kill the process group to which the process belongs. The kill
50 signal is only sent once per group, even if multiple processes
51 belonging to the same process group were found.
52 -i, --interactive
54 Interactively ask for confirmation before killing.
55 -l, --list
57 List all known signal names.
58 -o, --older-than
60 Match only processes that are older (started before) the time
61 specified. The time is specified as a float then a unit. The
62 units are s,m,h,d,w,M,y for seconds, minutes, hours, days,
63 weeks, Months and years respectively.
64 -q, --quiet
66 Do not complain if no processes were killed.
67 -r, --regexp
69 Interpret process name pattern as an extended regular expres‐
70 sion.
71 -s, --signal
73 Send this signal instead of SIGTERM.
74 -u, --user
76 Kill only processes the specified user owns. Command names are
77 optional.
78 -v, --verbose
80 Report if the signal was successfully sent.
81 -V, --version
83 Display version information.
84 -w, --wait
86 Wait for all killed processes to die. killall checks once per
87 second if any of the killed processes still exist and only
88 returns if none are left. Note that killall may wait forever if
89 the signal was ignored, had no effect, or if the process stays
90 in zombie state.
91 -y, --younger-than
93 Match only processes that are younger (started after) the time
94 specified. The time is specified as a float then a unit. The
95 units are s,m,h,d,w,M,y for seconds, minutes, hours, days,
96 weeks, Months and years respectively.
97 -Z, --context
99 (SELinux Only) Specify security context: kill only processes
100 having security context that match with given expended regular
101 expression pattern. Must precede other arguments on the command
102 line. Command names are optional.
103
105 /proc location of the proc file system
106
108 Killing by file only works for executables that are kept open during
109 execution, i.e. impure executables can't be killed this way.
110 Be warned that typing killall name may not have the desired effect on
112 non-Linux systems, especially when done by a privileged user.
113 killall -w doesn't detect if a process disappears and is replaced by a
115 new process with the same PID between scans.
116 If processes change their name, killall may not be able to match them
118 correctly.
119 killall has a limit of names that can be specified on the command line.
121 This figure is the size of an unsigned long multiplied by 8. For most
122 32 bit systems the limit is 32 and similarly for a 64 bit system the
123 limit is usually 64.
124
126 kill(1), fuser(1), pgrep(1), pidof(1), pkill(1), ps(1), kill(2).
127psmisc 2012-7-28 KILLALL(1)