kill(1)
Name
kill − send a signal to a process
Syntax
kill [−sig] processid...
kill −l
Description
The kill command sends the TERM (terminate, 15) signal to the specified processes. If a signal name or number preceded by ‘−’ is given as first argument, that signal is sent instead of terminate. For further information, see sigvec(.).
The terminate signal kills processes that do not catch the signal; ‘kill −9 ...’ is a sure kill, as the KILL (9) signal cannot be caught. By convention, if process number 0 is specified, all members in the process group (that is, processes resulting from the current login) are signaled. This works only if you use sh() and not if you use csh(.). To kill a process it must either belong to you or you must be superuser.
The process number of an asynchronous process started with ‘&’ is reported by the shell. Process numbers can also be found by using csh(.). It allows job specifiers “%...” so process ID’s are not as often used as kill arguments. See csh() for details.
Options
−lLists signal names. The signal names are listed by ‘kill −l’, and are as given in /usr/include/signal.h, stripped of the common SIG prefix.