kill

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KILL(1) FreeBSD General Commands Manual KILL(1)

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
The kill utility sends a signal to the processes specified by the pid op-
erand(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]
If no operand is given, list the signal names; otherwise, write
the signal name corresponding to exit_status.

-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.

Some of the more commonly used signals:
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)

Some shells may provide a builtin kill command which is similar or iden-
tical to this utility. Consult the builtin(1) manual page.

EXIT STATUS
The kill utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.

EXAMPLES
Terminate the processes with pids 142 and 157:

kill 142 157

Send the hangup signal (SIGHUP) to the process with pid 507:

kill -s HUP 507

Terminate the process group with pgid 117:

kill -- -117

SEE ALSO
builtin(1), csh(1), killall(1), ps(1), kill(2), sigaction(2)

STANDARDS
The kill function is expected to be IEEE Std 1003.2 (``POSIX.2'') compat-
ible.

HISTORY
A kill command appeared in Version 3 AT&T UNIX.

BUGS
A replacement for the command ``kill 0'' for csh(1) users should be pro-
vided.

FreeBSD 6.2 April 28, 1995 FreeBSD 6.2

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