NAME
kill
—
terminate or signal a
process
SYNOPSIS
kill |
[-s signal_name]
pid ... |
kill |
-l [exit_status] |
kill |
-signal_name pid ... |
kill |
-signal_number pid
... |
DESCRIPTION
Thekill
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.