KILL(1) | General Commands Manual | KILL(1) |
kill
— terminate
or signal a process
kill |
[-s signal_name]
pid ... |
kill |
-l [exit_status] |
kill |
-signal_name pid ... |
kill |
-signal_number pid
... |
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_nameTERM
.-l
[exit_status]If no operand is given, display the names of all the signals.
In /bin/kill, if the variable
POSIXLY_CORRECT
is set in the environment, this
uses the POSIX specified format, otherwise a slightly more pleasing
layout is used.
-signal_name
TERM
.-signal_number
TERM
.The following pids have special meanings:
Note that while not required by this implementation, if the first pid operand is negative, it should be preceded by the “--” end of options indicator, to avoid the pid being treated as yet more options. That is always required if no specific signal is specified and the first pid is negative, or that pid would be treated as the signal_number.
Some of the more commonly used signals:
SIGCONT
)kill
is a built-in to most shells,
including sh(1) and
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),
sh(1) or the man page for the
shell in use for details.
The kill
utility exits 0 on
success, and >0 if an error occurs.
csh(1), pgrep(1), pkill(1), ps(1), sh(1), kill(2), sigaction(2), signal(7)
The kill
utility is expected to be
IEEE Std 1003.2 (“POSIX.2”)
compatible.
A kill
command appeared in
Version 3 AT&T UNIX in section 8 of the
manual. The original BSD description was: ‘terminate a process with
extreme prejudice’.
August 15, 2021 | NetBSD 10.99 |