kill(1) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | NOTES | EXAMPLES | SEE ALSO | REPORTING BUGS | COLOPHON

KILL(1)                  General Commands Manual                  KILL(1)

NAME         top

       kill - send a signal to one or more processes

SYNOPSIS         top

       kill [-q value|--queue value] pid ...

       kill -signal [-q value|--queue value] pid-or-pgid ...
       kill -s signal [-q value|--queue value] pid-or-pgid ...
       kill --signal signal [-q value|--queue value] pid-or-pgid ...

       kill -l [signal]
       kill --list [signal]

       kill -L
       kill --table

DESCRIPTION         top

       kill sends a signal to one or more processes by pid or pgid, a
       process or process group identifier.  signal(7) explains the
       varieties and behavior of signals.  kill's default signal is TERM.
       The -l and -L options list available signals.  Particularly useful
       signals include HUP, INT, KILL, STOP, CONT, and 0.  Specify
       signals by number, by name, or by name with a “SIG” prefix; for
       example, -9, -SIGKILL, and -KILL are equivalent.  A negative
       operand selects a process group; see the PGID column in ps(1)
       command output.  A pid of -1 is special; it indicates all
       processes except the kill process itself and init(8).

       The -q option uses an alternative signaling method to to
       additionally transmit an integral value to a receiving process.
       If that process has installed a handler for the signal and
       specified the SA_SIGINFO flag to sigaction(2), then it can obtain
       this datum via the si_value field of the siginfo_t structure.

OPTIONS         top

       -signal
       -s signal
       --signal signal
              Send signal by name or number as described above.  If
              signal is 0 (zero), kill sends no signal, but still
              validates its operands; this behavior permits the caller to
              check whether the specified pids and/or pgids exist and it
              has permission to send them signals.

       -q value
       --queue value
              Use sigqueue(3) rather than kill(2) to additionally send
              value to each pid or pgid.

       -l [signal]
       --list [signal]
              Without an argument, list signal names.  The optional
              argument causes kill to convert the specified signal from
              name to numeric form, or vice versa as appropriate, and
              report the translation.

       -L
       --table
              List signal names in tabular format.

NOTES         top

       The shell (command-line interpreter) often has a built-in “kill”
       command.  You may need to run the command described here as /bin/
       kill to override the shell built-in.

       If you use a negative operand, specify a signal by name or number
       first so that kill can distinguish it from a process group.  For
       example, the command “kill 123 -9” is ambiguous; it could mean to
       kill process 123 with signal 9, or to kill process 123 and process
       group 9 with the default signal.

EXAMPLES         top

       kill -HUP -1
              Send hangup signal to all the processes you can.

       kill -l 11
              Report name corresponding to signal number 11.

       kill 123 543
              Send the default signal, SIGTERM, to processes 123 and 543.

       kill -SIGTERM -123
              Send the signal SIGTERM to process group 123.

SEE ALSO         top

       kill(2), killall(1), nice(1), pkill(1), renice(1), signal(7),
       sigqueue(3), skill(1)

REPORTING BUGS         top

       Please send bug reports to ⟨procps@freelists.org⟩.

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the procps-ng (/proc filesystem utilities)
       project.  Information about the project can be found at 
       ⟨https://gitlab.com/procps-ng/procps⟩.  If you have a bug report
       for this manual page, see
       ⟨https://gitlab.com/procps-ng/procps/blob/master/Documentation/bugs.md⟩.
       This page was obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
       ⟨https://gitlab.com/procps-ng/procps.git⟩ on 2025-02-02.  (At that
       time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in the
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       (which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
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procps-ng                       2023-12-27                        KILL(1)