kill \- terminate a process with extreme prejudice
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
The signal names are listed by
`kill \-l', and are as given in
.I /usr/include/signal.h,
stripped of the common SIG prefix.
The terminate signal will kill 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 (i.e. processes resulting from
the current login) are signaled (but beware: this works only
The killed processes must belong
to the current user unless
To shut the system down and bring it up single user
the super-user may send the initialization process a TERM (terminate)
to close and open terminals
according to what is currently in
use `kill \-HUP 1' (sending a hangup, signal 1).
The process number of an asynchronous process
started with `&' is reported by the shell.
Process numbers can also be found by using
it allows job specifiers ``%...''
so process id's are not as often used as
csh(1), ps(1), kill(2), signal(2)
An option to kill process groups ala
should be provided; a replacement for ``kill 0''
users should be provided.