NAME
kill - terminate or signal processes
SYNOPSIS
/usr/bin/kill -s signal pid...
/usr/bin/kill -l [exit_status]
/usr/bin/kill [ -signal ] pid...
AVAILABILITY
SUNWcsu
DESCRIPTION
The kill utility sends a signal to the process or processes
specified by each pid operand.
For each pid operand, the kill utility will perform actions
equivalent to the kill(2) function called with the following
arguments:
1. The value of the pid operand will be used as the
pid argument.
2. The sig argument is the value specified by the - s
option, or by SIGTERM, if none of these options is
specified.
The signalled process must belong to the current user unless
the user is the super-user.
See NOTES for descriptions of the shell built-in versions of
kill.
OPTIONS
The following options are supported:
-l (The letter ell.) Write all values of sig-
nal supported by the implementation, if no
operand is given. If an exit_status operand
is given and it is a value of the ? shell
special parameter and wait corresponding to a
process that was terminated by a signal, the
signal corresponding to the signal that ter-
minated the process will be written. If an
exit_status operand is given and it is the
unsigned decimal integer value of a signal
number, the signal corresponding to that sig-
nal will be written. Otherwise, the results
are unspecified.
-s signal Specify the signal to send, using one of the
symbolic names defined in the <signal.h>
description. Values of signal will be
recognised in a case-independent fashion,
without the SIG prefix. In addition, the
symbolic name 0 will be recognised,
representing the signal value zero. The
corresponding signal will be sent instead of
SIGTERM.
OPERANDS
The following operands are supported:
pid One of the following:
1. A decimal integer specifying a process or
process group to be signalled. The process
or processes selected by positive, negative
and zero values of the pid operand will be as
described for the kill function. If process
number 0 is specified, all processes in the
process group are signalled. If the first
pid operand is negative, it should be pre-
ceded by -- to keep it from being interpreted
as an option.
2. A job control job ID that identifies a back-
ground process group to be signalled. The
job control job ID notation is applicable
only for invocations of kill in the current
shell execution environment.
Note the job control job ID type of pid is
available only on systems supporting the job
control option.
exit_status A decimal integer specifying a signal number or
the exit status of a process terminated by a
signal.
USAGE
Process numbers can be found by using ps(1).
The job control job ID notation is not required to work as
expected when kill is operating in its own utility execution
environment. In either of the following examples:
nohup kill %1 &
system( kill %1");"
kill operates in a different environment and will not share
the shell's understanding of job numbers.
OUTPUT
When the -l option is not specified, the standard output
will not be used.
When the -l option is specified, the symbolic name of each
signal will be written in the following format:
"%s%c", <signal>, <separator>
where the <signal> is in upper-case, without the SIG prefix,
and the <separator> will be either a newline character or a
space character. For the last signal written, <separator>
will be a newline character.
When both the -l option and exit_status operand are speci-
fied, the symbolic name of the corresponding signal will be
written in the following format:
"%s0, <signal>
EXAMPLES
Any of the commands:
kill -9 100 -165
kill -s kill 100 -165
kill -s KILL 100 -165
sends the SIGKILL signal to the process whose process ID is
100 and to all processes whose process group ID is 165,
assuming the sending process has permission to send that
signal to the specified processes, and that they exist.
To avoid an ambiguity of an initial negative number argument
specifying either a signal number or a process group, the
former will always be the case. Therefore, to send the
default signal to a process group (for example, 123), an
application should use a command similar to one of the fol-
lowing:
kill -TERM -123
kill -- -123
ENVIRONMENT
See environ(5) for descriptions of the following environment
variables that affect the execution of kill: LC_CTYPE,
LC_MESSAGES, and NLSPATH.
EXIT STATUS
The following exit values are returned:
0 At least one matching process was found for each
pid operand, and the specified signal was success-
fully processed for at least one matching process.
>0 An error occurred.
SEE ALSO
csh(1), jobs(1), ksh(1), ps(1), sh(1), shell_builtins(1),
wait(1), kill(2), signal(3C), environ(5), signal(5)
NOTES
sh
The Bourne shell, sh, has a built-in version of kill to pro-
vide the functionality of the kill command for processes
identified with a jobid. The sh syntax is:
kill [ -sig ] [ pid ] [ %job ] ...
kill -l
csh
The C-shell, csh, also has a built-in kill command, whose
syntax is:
kill [ -sig ] [ pid ] [ %job ] ...
kill -l
The csh kill built-in sends the TERM (terminate) signal, by
default, or the signal specified, to the specified process
ID, the job indicated, or the current job. Signals are
either given by number or by name. There is no default.
Typing kill does not send a signal to the current job. If
the signal being sent is TERM (terminate) or HUP (hangup),
then the job or process is sent a CONT (continue) signal as
well.
-l List the signal names that can be sent.
ksh
The ksh kill's syntax is:
kill [ -sig ] [ pid ] [ %job ] ...
kill -l
The ksh kill sends either the TERM (terminate) signal or the
specified signal to the specified jobs or processes. Sig-
nals are either given by number or by names (as given in
signal(5) stripped of the prefix "SIG"). If the signal
being sent is TERM (terminate) or HUP (hangup), then the job
or process will be sent a CONT (continue) signal if it is
stopped. The argument job can be the process id of a pro-
cess that is not a member of one of the active jobs. In the
second form, kill -l, the signal numbers and names are
listed.