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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | NOTES | EXAMPLES | SEE ALSO | REPORTING BUGS | COLOPHON |
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KILL(1) General Commands Manual KILL(1)
kill - send a signal to one or more processes
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
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.
-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.
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.
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.
kill(2), killall(1), nice(1), pkill(1), renice(1), signal(7),
sigqueue(3), skill(1)
Please send bug reports to ⟨[email protected]⟩.
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 2026-01-16. (At that
time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in the
repository was 2026-01-06.) If you discover any rendering
problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there is
a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
(which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
[email protected]
procps-ng 2023-12-27 KILL(1)
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HTML rendering created 2026-01-16 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
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