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] [-n, --ns PID] [-o, --older-than TIME]
11 [-q, --quiet] [-r, --regexp] [-s, --signal SIGNAL, -SIGNAL] [-u, --user
12 user] [-v, --verbose] [-w, --wait] [-y, --younger-than TIME]
13 [-I, --ignore-case] [-V, --version] [--] 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 -n, --ns
60 Match against the PID namespace of the given PID. Use 0 to match
61 against all namespaces. The default is to match against the cur‐
62 rent PID namespace.
63 -o, --older-than
65 Match only processes that are older (started before) the time
66 specified. The time is specified as a float then a unit. The
67 units are s,m,h,d,w,M,y for seconds, minutes, hours, days,
68 weeks, Months and years respectively.
69 -q, --quiet
71 Do not complain if no processes were killed.
72 -r, --regexp
74 Interpret process name pattern as a POSIX extended regular
75 expression, per regex(3).
76 -s, --signal, -SIGNAL
78 Send this signal instead of SIGTERM.
79 -u, --user
81 Kill only processes the specified user owns. Command names are
82 optional.
83 -v, --verbose
85 Report if the signal was successfully sent.
86 -V, --version
88 Display version information.
89 -w, --wait
91 Wait for all killed processes to die. killall checks once per
92 second if any of the killed processes still exist and only
93 returns if none are left. Note that killall may wait forever if
94 the signal was ignored, had no effect, or if the process stays
95 in zombie state.
96 -y, --younger-than
98 Match only processes that are younger (started after) the time
99 specified. The time is specified as a float then a unit. The
100 units are s,m,h,d,w,M,y for seconds, minutes, hours, days,
101 weeks, Months and years respectively.
102 -Z, --context
104 (SELinux Only) Specify security context: kill only processes
105 having security context that match with given extended regular
106 expression pattern. Must precede other arguments on the command
107 line. Command names are optional.
108
110 /proc location of the proc file system
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113 Killing by file only works for executables that are kept open during
114 execution, i.e. impure executables can't be killed this way.
115 Be warned that typing killall name may not have the desired effect on
117 non-Linux systems, especially when done by a privileged user.
118 killall -w doesn't detect if a process disappears and is replaced by a
120 new process with the same PID between scans.
121 If processes change their name, killall may not be able to match them
123 correctly.
124 killall has a limit of names that can be specified on the command line.
126 This figure is the size of an unsigned long multiplied by 8. For most
127 32 bit systems the limit is 32 and similarly for a 64 bit system the
128 limit is usually 64.
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131 kill(1), fuser(1), pgrep(1), pidof(1), pkill(1), ps(1), kill(2),
132 regex(3).
133psmisc 2017-06-12 KILLALL(1)