kill(1)                                                             kill(1)




 NAME
      kill - send a signal to a process; terminate a process

 SYNOPSIS
      kill [-s signame] pid ...

      kill [-s signum] pid ...

      kill -l

    Obsolescent Versions:
      kill -signame pid ...

      kill -signum pid ...

 DESCRIPTION
      The kill command sends a signal to each process specified by a pid
      process identifier.  The default signal is SIGTERM, which normally
      terminates processes that do not trap or ignore the signal.

      pid is a process identifier, an unsigned or negative integer that can
      be one of the following:

           > 0  The number of a process.

           = 0  All processes, except special system processes, whose
                process group ID is equal to the process group ID of the
                sender.

           =-1  All processes, except special system processes, if the user
                has appropriate privileges.  Otherwise, all processes,
                except special system processes, whose real or effective
                user ID is the same as the user ID of the sending process.

           <-1  All processes, except special system processes, whose
                process group ID is equal to the absolute value of pid and
                whose real or effective user ID is the same as the user of
                the sending process.

      Process numbers can be found with the ps command (see ps(1)) and with
      the built-in jobs command available in some shells.

    Options
      kill recognizes the following options:

           -l    (ell)       List all values of signame supported by the
                             implementation.  No signals are sent with this
                             option.  The symbolic names of the signals
                             (without the SIG prefix) are written to
                             standard output, separated by spaces and
                             newlines.



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 kill(1)                                                             kill(1)




           -s signame        Send the specified signal name.  The default is
                             SIGTERM, number 15.  signame can be specified
                             in upper- and/or lowercase, with or without the
                             SIG prefix.  These values can be obtained by
                             using the -l option.  The symbolic name SIGNULL
                             represents signal value zero.  See "Signal
                             Names and Numbers" below.

           -s signum         Send the specified decimal signal number.  The
                             default is 15, SIGTERM.  See "Signal Names and
                             Numbers" below.

           -signame          (Obsolescent.) Equivalent to -s signame.

           -signum           (Obsolescent.) Equivalent to -s signum.

    Signal Names and Numbers
      The following table describes a few of the more common signals that
      can be useful from a terminal.  For a complete list and a full
      description, see the header file <signal.h> and the manual entry
      signal(5).

   signum   signame   Name            Description
   ___________________________________________________________________________
      0     SIGNULL   Null            Check access to pid
      1     SIGHUP    Hangup          Terminate; can be trapped
      2     SIGINT    Interrupt       Terminate; can be trapped
      3     SIGQUIT   Quit            Terminate with core dump; can be trapped
      9     SIGKILL   Kill            Forced termination; cannot be trapped
     15     SIGTERM   Terminate       Terminate; can be trapped
     24     SIGSTOP   Stop            Pause the process; cannot be trapped
     25     SIGTSTP   Terminal stop   Pause the process; can be trapped
     26     SIGCONT   Continue        Run a stopped process

      SIGNULL (0), the null signal, invokes error checking but no signal is
      actually sent.  This can be used to test the validity or existence of
      pid.

      SIGTERM (15), the (default) terminate signal, can be trapped by the
      receiving process, allowing the receiver to execute an orderly
      shutdown or to ignore the signal entirely.  For orderly operations,
      this is the perferred choice.

      SIGKILL (9), the kill signal, forces a process to terminate
      immediately.  Since SIGKILL cannot be trapped or ignored, it is useful
      for terminating a process that does not respond to SIGTERM.

      The receiving process must belong to the user of the sending process,
      unless the user has appropriate privileges.





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 kill(1)                                                             kill(1)




      As a single special case, the continue signal SIGCONT can be sent to
      any process that is a member of the same session as the sending
      process.

 RETURN VALUE
      Upon completion, kill returns with one of the following values:

            0   At least one matching process was found for each pid
                operand, and the specified signal was successfully processed
                for at least one matching process.

           >0   An error occurred.

 EXAMPLES
      The command:

           kill 6135

      signals process number 6135 to terminate.  This gives the process an
      opportunity to exit gracefully (removing temporary files, etc.).

      The following equivalent commands:

           kill -s SIGKILL 6135
           kill -s KILL 6135
           kill -s 9 6135
           kill -SIGKILL 6135
           kill -KILL 6135
           kill -9 6135

      terminate process number 6135 abruptly by sending a SIGKILL signal to
      the process.  This tells the kernel to remove the process immediately.

 WARNINGS
      If a process hangs during some operation (such as I/O) so that it is
      never scheduled, it cannot die until it is allowed to run.  Thus, such
      a process may never go away after the kill.  Similarly, defunct
      processes (see ps(1)) may have already finished executing, but remain
      on the system until their parent reaps them (see wait(2)).  Using kill
      to send signals to them has no effect.

      Some non-HP-UX implementations provide kill only as a shell built-in
      command.

 DEPENDENCIES
      This manual entry describes the external command /usr/bin/kill and the
      built-in kill command of the POSIX shell (see sh-posix(1)).  Other
      shells, such as C and Korn (see csh(1) and ksh(1) respectively), also
      provide kill as a built-in command.  The syntax for and output from
      these built-ins may be different.




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 kill(1)                                                             kill(1)




 SEE ALSO
      csh(1), ksh(1), ps(1), sh(1), sh-bourne(1), sh-posix(1), kill(2),
      wait(2), signal(5).

 STANDARDS CONFORMANCE
      kill: SVID2, SVID3, XPG2, XPG3, XPG4, POSIX.2
















































 Hewlett-Packard Company            - 4 -    HP-UX Release 10.20:  July 1996