KILLALL linux command manual
KILLALL(1) User Commands KILLALL(1)
NAME
killall - kill processes by name
SYNOPSIS
killall [-c,--context] [-e,--exact] [-g,--process-group] [-i,--inter-
active] [-q,--quiet] [-s,--signal signal] [-v,--verbose] [-w,--wait]
[-V,--version] [--] 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
particular 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 listed command. killall returns non-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
everything 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.
-Z (SELinux Only) Specify security context: kill only processes
with given security context. Must precede 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 wrote the original version
of psmisc. Since version 20 Craig Small
can be blamed.
SEE ALSO
kill(1),fuser(1),pgrep(1),pidof(1),pkill(1),ps(1),kill(2)
Linux September 26, 2003 KILLALL(1)