NAME
kill —
terminate or signal a
process
SYNOPSIS
kill |
[-s
signal_name] pid
... |
kill |
-signal_name pid ... |
kill |
-signal_number pid ... |
DESCRIPTION
The
kill utility sends a signal to the process(es) specified
by the pid operand(s).
Only the super-user may send signals to other users' processes.
The options are as follows:
-
-
- -s
signal_name
- A symbolic signal name specifying the signal to be sent
instead of the default
TERM
.
-
-
- -l
[exit_status]
- Display the name of the signal corresponding to
exit_status. exit_status may
be the exit status of a command killed by a signal (see the special
sh(1) parameter ‘?’)
or a signal number.
If no operand is given, display the names of all the signals.
-
-
- -signal_name
- A symbolic signal name specifying the signal to be sent
instead of the default
TERM
.
-
-
- -signal_number
- A non-negative decimal integer, specifying the signal to be
sent instead of the default
TERM
.
The following pids have special meanings:
- -1
- If superuser, broadcast the signal to all processes;
otherwise broadcast to all processes belonging to the user.
- 0
- Broadcast the signal to all processes in the current
process group belonging to the user.
Some of the more commonly used signals:
- 0
- 0 (does not affect the process; can be used to test whether
the process exists)
- 1
- HUP (hang up)
- 2
- INT (interrupt)
- 3
- QUIT (quit)
- 6
- ABRT (abort)
- 9
- KILL (non-catchable, non-ignorable kill)
- 14
- ALRM (alarm clock)
- 15
- TERM (software termination signal)
kill is a built-in to
csh(1); it allows job specifiers of
the form ``%...'' as arguments so process id's are not as often used as
kill arguments. See
csh(1) for details.
DIAGNOSTICS
The
kill utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an
error occurs.
SEE ALSO
csh(1),
pgrep(1),
pkill(1),
ps(1),
kill(2),
sigaction(2),
signal(7)
STANDARDS
The
kill utility is expected to be
IEEE Std
1003.2 (“POSIX.2”) compatible.
HISTORY
A
kill command appeared in
Version 3
AT&T UNIX in section 8 of the manual.