killall

KILLALL(1)                       User Commands                      KILLALL(1)



NAME
       killall - kill processes by name

SYNOPSIS
       killall [-e,--exact] [-g,--process-group] [-i,--interactive]
       [-q,--quiet] [-v,--verbose] [-w,--wait] [-V,--version] [-S,--sid]
       [-c,--context] [-s,--signal signal] [--] name ...
       killall -l
       killall -V,--version

DESCRIPTION
       killall  sends  a  signal to all processes running any of the specified
       commands. If no signal name is specified, SIGTERM is sent.

       Signals can be specified either by name (e.g. -HUP) or by number  (e.g.
       -1).

       If the command name contains a slash (/), processes executing that par-
       ticular file will be selected for killing, independent of their name.

       killall returns a zero return code if at least  one  process  has  been
       killed for each ilisted command. killall returns zero otherwise.

       A  killall  process never kills itself (but may kill other killall pro-
       cesses).

OPTIONS
       -e, --exact
              Require an exact match for very long names. If a command name is
              longer  than  15  characters,  the  full name may be unavailable
              (i.e. it is swapped out). In this case, killall will kill every-
              thing that matches within the first 15 characters. With -e, such
              entries are skipped.  killall prints a message for each  skipped
              entry if -v is specified in addition to -e,

       -g, --process-group
              Kill  the  process  group to which the process belongs. The kill
              signal is only sent once per group, even if  multiple  processes
              belonging to the same process group were found.

       -i, --interactive
              Interactively ask for confirmation before killing.

       -l, --list
              List all known signal names.

       -q, --quiet
              Do not complain if no processes were killed.

       -v, --verbose
              Report if the signal was successfully sent.

       -V, --version
              Display version information.

       -w, --wait
              Wait  for  all  killed processes to die. killall checks once per
              second if any of the  killed  processes  still  exist  and  only
              returns if none are left.  Note that killall may wait forever if
              the signal was ignored, had no effect, or if the  process  stays
              in zombie state.

       -S     (Flask  only)  Specify  SID: kill only processes with given SID.
              Mutually exclusive with -c argument.  Must precede  other  argu-
              ments on command line.

       -c     (Flask  only) Specify security context: kill only processes with
              given security context.  Mutually exclusive with -s.  Must  pre-
              cede other arguments on the command line.

FILES
       /proc     location of the proc file system

KNOWN BUGS
       Killing  by  file  only works for executables that are kept open during
       execution, i.e. impure executables can't be killed this way.

       Be warned that typing killall name may not have the desired  effect  on
       non-Linux systems, especially when done by a privileged user.

       killall  -w doesn't detect if a process disappears and is replaced by a
       new process with the same PID between scans.

AUTHORS
       Werner Almesberger <Werner.Almesberger@epfl.ch> wrote the original ver-
       sion  of  psmisc.   Since  version  20  Craig Small <csmall@small.drop-
       bear.id.au> can be blamed.

SEE ALSO
       kill(1), fuser(1), pgrep(1), pidof(1), ps(1), kill(2)



Linux                           March 25, 2001                      KILLALL(1)