kill Command Examples

Sends a signal to a process, usually related to stopping the process. All signals except for SIGKILL and SIGSTOP can be intercepted by the process to perform a clean exit. More information: https://manned.org/kill.1posix.

• Terminate a program using the default SIGTERM (terminate) signal:

kill {{process_id}}

• List available signal names (to be used without the SIG prefix):

kill -l

• Terminate a program using the SIGHUP (hang up) signal. Many daemons will reload instead of terminating:

kill -{{1|HUP}} {{process_id}}

• Terminate a program using the SIGINT (interrupt) signal. This is typically initiated by the user pressing Ctrl + C:

kill -{{2|INT}} {{process_id}}

• Signal the operating system to immediately terminate a program (which gets no chance to capture the signal):

kill -{{9|KILL}} {{process_id}}

• Signal the operating system to pause a program until a SIGCONT ("continue") signal is received:

kill -{{17|STOP}} {{process_id}}

• Send a SIGUSR1 signal to all processes with the given GID (group id):

kill -{{SIGUSR1}} -{{group_id}}