KILL(1) KILL(1) NAME kill - terminate a process with extreme prejudice 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 ter- minate (see signal(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 will kill processes that do not catch the signal; `kill -9 ...' is a sure kill, as the KILL signal (signal 9) cannot be caught. By convention, if process num- ber 0 is specified, all members in the process group (i.e. processes resulting from the current login) are signaled. The killed processes must belong to the current user unless he is the super-user. To shut the system down and bring it up single user the super-user may send the initialization process a TERM (ter- minate) signal by `kill 1'; see init(8). To force init to close and open terminals according to what is currently in /etc/ttys use `kill -1 1' (sending a hangup, signal 1). The process number of an asynchronous process started with `&' is reported by the shell and by ps(1). SEE ALSO ps(1), kill(2), signal(2)