NAME

kill − terminate a process with extreme prejudice

SYNOPSIS

kill [ −sig ] processid ... 
kill −l

DESCRIPTION

kill 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 (see sigvec(2)).

kill −l lists the signal names, which are also given in <sys/signal.h> (you must strip off the common SIG prefix). 

The terminate signal will kill processes that do not catch the signal; ‘kill −KILL ...’ 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 (i.e. processes resulting from the current login) are signaled.  (But beware: this works only if you use sh(1); not if you use csh(1).) Negative process numbers also have special meanings; see kill(2) for details.

The killed processes must belong to the current user unless he is the super-user. 

The process number of an asynchronous process started with ‘&’ is reported by the shell.  Process numbers can also be found by using ps(1). Kill is a built-in to 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) for details.

SEE ALSO

csh(1), ps(1), kill(2), sigvec(2)

BUGS

A replacement for “kill 0” for csh(1) users should be provided.

4th Berkeley Distribution  —  April 20, 1986