NAME

kill − terminate a process

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)).  The signal names are listed by kill −l , and are as given in /usr/include/signal.h, stripped of the common SIG prefix. 

The terminate signal kills processes that do not catch the signal; kill −9 . . .  is a sure kill, because 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 3csh(1).)  The killed processes must belong to the current user or the superuser. 

The process number of an asynchronous process started with & is reported by the shell.  Process numbers can also be found by using kill as a built-in to csh(1); it allows job specifiers % . . . , so process id’s are not used as often as kill arguments.  See csh(1) for details. 

SEE ALSO

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

BUGS

An option to kill process groups that works like killpg(2) should be provided.  A replacement for kill 0 for csh(1) users should be provided. 

4BSD