KILLALL(1)                                                         User Commands                                                        KILLALL(1)

NAME

       killall - kill processes by name

SYNOPSIS

       killall [-Z, --context pattern] [-e, --exact] [-g, --process-group] [-i, --interactive] [-n, --ns PID] [-o, --older-than TIME]
       [-q, --quiet] [-r, --regexp] [-s, --signal SIGNAL, -SIGNAL] [-u, --user user] [-v, --verbose] [-w, --wait] [-y, --younger-than TIME]
       [-I, --ignore-case] [-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 -SIGHUP) or by number (e.g.  -1) or by option -s.

       If  the  command  name  is  not  regular  expression (option -r) and 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, or no commands were listed and at least
       one process matched the -u and -Z search criteria.  killall returns non-zero otherwise.

       A killall process never kills itself (but may kill other killall processes).

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,

       -I, --ignore-case
              Do case insensitive process name match.

       -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.

       -n, --ns
              Match against the PID namespace of the given PID. Use 0 to match against all namespaces. The default is to match against the current
              PID namespace.

       -o, --older-than
              Match  only  processes that are older (started before) the time specified.  The time is specified as a float then a unit.  The units
              are s,m,h,d,w,M,y for seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, Months and years respectively.

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

       -r, --regexp
              Interpret process name pattern as a POSIX extended regular expression, per regex(3).

       -s, --signal, -SIGNAL
              Send this signal instead of SIGTERM.

       -u, --user
              Kill only processes the specified user owns.  Command names are optional.

       -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.

       -y, --younger-than
              Match only processes that are younger (started after) the time specified.  The time is specified as a float then a unit.  The  units
              are s,m,h,d,w,M,y for seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, Months and years respectively.

       -Z, --context
              (SELinux  Only) Specify security context: kill only processes having security context that match with given extended regular expres-
              sion pattern.  Must precede other arguments on the command line.  Command names are optional.

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.

       If processes change their name, killall may not be able to match them correctly.

       killall has a limit of names that can be specified on the command line.  This figure is the size of an unsigned long multiplied by 8.   For
       most 32 bit systems the limit is 32 and similarly for a 64 bit system the limit is usually 64.

SEE ALSO

       kill(1), fuser(1), pgrep(1), pidof(1), pkill(1), ps(1), kill(2), regex(3).

psmisc                                                              2017-06-12                                                          KILLALL(1)