KILL(1)                          User Commands                         KILL(1)



NAME
       kill - send a signal to a process

SYNOPSIS
       kill [options] <pid> [...]

DESCRIPTION
       The  default  signal  for kill is TERM.  Use -l or -L to list available
       signals.  Particularly useful signals include  HUP,  INT,  KILL,  STOP,
       CONT,  and  0.   Alternate  signals may be specified in three ways: -9,
       -SIGKILL or -KILL.  Negative PID values may be  used  to  choose  whole
       process  groups; see the PGID column in ps command output.  A PID of -1
       is special; it indicates all processes except the kill  process  itself
       and init.

OPTIONS
       <pid> [...]
              Send signal to every <pid> listed.

       -<signal>
       -s <signal>
       --signal <signal>
              Specify  the  signal to be sent.  The signal can be specified by
              using name or number.  The behavior of signals is  explained  in
              signal(7) manual page.

       -l, --list [signal]
              List  signal  names.   This  option has optional argument, which
              will convert signal number to signal name, or other way round.

       -L, --table
              List signal names in a nice table.


       NOTES  Your shell (command line interpreter) may have a  built-in  kill
              command.   You  may  need  to  run the command described here as
              /bin/kill to solve the conflict.

EXAMPLES
       kill -9 -1
              Kill all processes you can kill.

       kill -l 11
              Translate number 11 into a signal name.

       kill -L
              List the available signal choices in a nice table.

       kill 123 543 2341 3453
              Send the default signal, SIGTERM, to all those processes.

SEE ALSO
       kill(2), killall(1), nice(1), pkill(1), renice(1), signal(7), skill(1)

STANDARDS
       This command meets appropriate standards. The  -L  flag  is  Linux-spe-
       cific.

AUTHOR
       Albert  Cahalan  <albert@users.sf.net>  wrote kill in 1999 to replace a
       bsdutils one that was not  standards  compliant.   The  util-linux  one
       might also work correctly.

REPORTING BUGS
       Please send bug reports to <procps@freelists.org>



procps-ng                        October 2011                          KILL(1)
