NAME
pkill,
pgrep,
prenice
—
find or signal processes by name
SYNOPSIS
pgrep |
[-filnvx]
[-d delim]
[-G gid]
[-g pgrp]
[-P ppid]
[-s sid]
[-t tty]
[-U uid]
[-u euid]
pattern ... |
pkill |
[-signal]
[-filnvx]
[-G gid]
[-g pgrp]
[-P ppid]
[-s sid]
[-t tty]
[-U uid]
[-u euid]
pattern ... |
prenice |
[-l]
priority pattern ... |
DESCRIPTION
The
pgrep command searches the process table on the running
system and prints the process IDs of all processes that match the criteria
given on the command line.
The
pkill command searches the process table on the running
system and signals all processes that match the criteria given on the command
line.
The
prenice command searches the process table on the running
system and sets the priority of all processes that match the criteria given on
the command line.
By default, matching applies to any substring of the command name
(
argv[0]), but options may be used to change this.
Patterns are specified using extended regular expressions (see
re_format(7)).
The following options are available for
pkill and
pgrep:
-
-
- -d
delim
- Specify a delimiter to be printed between each process ID.
The default is a newline. This option can only be used with the
pgrep command.
-
-
- -f
- Match against full argument lists. The default is to match
against process names.
-
-
- -G
gid
- Restrict matches to processes with a real group ID in the
comma-separated list gid.
-
-
- -g
pgrp
- Restrict matches to processes with a process group ID in
the comma-separated list pgrp. The value zero is
taken to mean the process group ID of the running pgrep
or pkill command.
-
-
- -i
- Ignore case distinctions in both the process table and the
supplied pattern.
-
-
- -l
- Long output. Print the process name in addition to the
process ID for each matching process. If used in conjunction with
-f, print the process ID and the full argument list for
each matching process.
-
-
- -n
- Match only the most recently created process, if any.
-
-
- -P
ppid
- Restrict matches to processes with a parent process ID in
the comma-separated list ppid.
-
-
- -s
sid
- Restrict matches to processes with a session ID in the
comma-separated list sid. The value zero is taken to
mean the session ID of the running pgrep or
pkill command.
-
-
- -t
tty
- Restrict matches to processes associated with a terminal in
the comma-separated list tty. Terminal names may be
specified as a fully qualified path, in the form ‘ttyXX’, or
‘pts/N’, (where XX is any pair of
letters, and N is a number), or the shortened forms
‘XX’ or ‘N’. A single dash (‘-’)
matches processes not associated with a terminal.
-
-
- -U
uid
- Restrict matches to processes with a real user ID in the
comma-separated list uid.
-
-
- -u
euid
- Restrict matches to processes with an effective user ID in
the comma-separated list euid.
-
-
- -v
- Reverse the sense of the matching; display processes that
do not match the given criteria.
-
-
- -x
- Require an exact match of the process name, or argument
list if -f is given. The default is to match any
substring.
-
-
- -signal
- A non-negative decimal number or symbolic signal name
specifying the signal to be sent instead of the default TERM. This option
is valid only when given as the first argument to
pkill.
The
-l flag is also available for
prenice.
Note that a running
pgrep,
pkill, or
prenice process will never consider itself or system
processes (kernel threads) as a potential match.
EXIT STATUS
pgrep,
pkill, and
prenice
return one of the following values upon exit:
-
-
- 0
- One or more processes were matched.
-
-
- 1
- No processes were matched.
-
-
- 2
- Invalid options were specified on the command line.
-
-
- 3
- An internal error occurred.
SEE ALSO
grep(1),
kill(1),
ps(1),
kill(2),
sigaction(2),
re_format(7),
signal(7),
renice(8)
HISTORY
pkill and
pgrep first appeared in
NetBSD 1.6. They are modelled after utilities of the
same name that appeared in Sun Solaris 7.
prenice was introduced in
NetBSD 6.0.
AUTHORS
Andrew Doran
<
ad@NetBSD.org>.