NAME

kill − terminate a process with extreme prejudice

SYNOPSIS

kill [ −signo ] processid ... 

DESCRIPTION

Kill sends signal 15 (terminate) to the specified processes.  If a signal number preceded by ‘−’ is given as first argument, that signal is sent instead of terminate (see signal(2)). This will kill processes that do not catch the signal; in particular ‘kill −9 ...’ is a sure kill.

By convention, if process number 0 is specified, all members in the process group (i.e. processes resulting from the current login) are signaled. 

The killed processes must belong to the current user unless he is the super-user.  To shut the system down and bring it up single user the super-user may use ‘kill −1 1’; see init(8).

The process number of an asynchronous process started with ‘&’ is reported by the shell.  Process numbers can also be found by using ps(1).

SEE ALSO

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

7th Edition