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kill.man
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KILL(1)                          User Commands                          KILL(1)

NAME
       kill - send a signal to a process

SYNOPSIS
       kill [options] <pid> [...]

DESCRIPTION
       The  default  signal  for  kill is TERM.  Use -l or -L to list available
       signals.  Particularly useful signals  include  HUP,  INT,  KILL,  STOP,
       CONT,  and  0.   Alternate  signals  may be specified in three ways: -9,
       -SIGKILL or -KILL.  Negative PID values may  be  used  to  choose  whole
       process  groups;  see the PGID column in ps command output.  A PID of -1
       is special; it indicates all processes except the  kill  process  itself
       and init.

OPTIONS
       <pid> [...]
              Send signal to every <pid> listed.

       -<signal>
       -s <signal>
       --signal <signal>
              Specify  the  signal  to be sent.  The signal can be specified by
              using name or number.  The behavior of signals  is  explained  in
              signal(7) manual page.

       -q, --queue value
              Use  sigqueue(3)  rather  than  kill(2) and the value argument is
              used to specify an integer to be sent with the signal. If the re‐
              ceiving process has installed a handler for this signal using the
              SA_SIGINFO flag to sigaction(2), then it can obtain this data via
              the si_value field of the siginfo_t structure.

       -l, --list [signal]
              List signal names.  This option has optional argument, which will
              convert signal number to signal name, or other way round.

       -L, --table
              List signal names in a nice table.

       NOTES  Your shell (command line interpreter) may have  a  built‐in  kill
              command.   You  may  need  to  run  the command described here as
              /bin/kill to solve the conflict.

EXAMPLES
       kill -9 -1
              Kill all processes you can kill.

       kill -l 11
              Translate number 11 into a signal name.

       kill ‐L
              List the available signal choices in a nice table.

       kill 123 543 2341 3453
              Send the default signal, SIGTERM, to all those processes.

SEE ALSO
       kill(2),   killall(1),   nice(1),   pkill(1),   renice(1),    signal(7),
       sigqueue(3), skill(1)

STANDARDS
       This command meets appropriate standards. The -L flag is Linux‐specific.

AUTHOR
       Albert Cahalan wrote kill in 1999 to replace a bsdutils one that was not
       standards compliant.  The util‐linux one might also work correctly.

REPORTING BUGS
       Please send bug reports to procps@freelists.org

procps‐ng                          2023‐01‐16                           KILL(1)
Chunks
be84d605 (1st chunk of `kill.man`)
Title: kill Command: Send Signals to Processes
Summary
The `kill` command sends signals to processes. By default, it sends the TERM signal, but you can specify other signals using options like `-<signal>`, `-s <signal>`, or `--signal <signal>`. Negative PID values target process groups, and a PID of -1 targets all processes except the kill process itself and init. The command also allows listing signal names and translating between names and numbers. The `-q` option uses `sigqueue` to send an integer value with the signal. This manual page describes the `kill` command, its options, and provides examples of its usage.