kill(1)

kill -- send a signal to a process

Synopsis

kill [-s signal] pid . . .

kill -l [status]

kill [-signal] pid . . .

Description

kill sends a signal to the specified processes. The value of signal may be numeric or symbolic (see signal(5)). The symbolic signal name is the name as it appears in /usr/include/sys/signal.h, with the SIG prefix stripped off. Signal 15 (SIGTERM) is sent by default; this will normally kill processes that do not catch or ignore the signal.

pid is either an unsigned or negative integer that identifies which process(es) should receive the signal. If pid is unsigned, the process with process ID pid is selected. If pid is preceded by a negative sign (-), all processes with process group ID pid are selected.

For example, if pid is 0, all processes in the process group are signaled.

The signaled process must belong to the current user unless the user is a privileged user.

The process number of each asynchronous process started with ``&'' is reported by the shell (unless more than one process is started in a pipeline, in which case the number of the last process in the pipeline is reported). Process numbers can also be found by using ps(1).

Options

-s signal: Send signal to the selected processes.
-l [status]: If status is null, print a list of symbolic signal names that may be used as signal. If status is not null, it is either a return status from a process terminated by a signal (stored in the ? environment variable for the most recently completed process), or a signal number. In both cases the symbolic name of the matching signal is printed.
-signal: This option is the same as -s signal.

Files

/usr/lib/locale/locale/LC_MESSAGES/uxcore.abi: language-specific message file (see LANG on environ(5)).

References

kill(2), ps(1), sh(1), signal(2), signal(5)

Notices

The -signal usage is for backward compatibility, and may not be supported in future releases. It should therefore be avoided.