KILL(2) 						     Linux Programmer's Manual							   KILL(2)

NAME

       kill - send signal to a process

SYNOPSIS

       #include <sys/types.h>
       #include <signal.h>

       int kill(pid_t pid, int sig);

   Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)):

       kill(): _POSIX_C_SOURCE >= 1 || _XOPEN_SOURCE || _POSIX_SOURCE

DESCRIPTION

       The kill() system call can be used to send any signal to any process group or process.

       If pid is positive, then signal sig is sent to the process with the ID specified by pid.

       If pid equals 0, then sig is sent to every process in the process group of the calling process.

       If  pid	equals	-1,  then  sig is sent to every process for which the calling process has permission to send signals, except for process 1
       (init), but see below.

       If pid is less than -1, then sig is sent to every process in the process group whose ID is -pid.

       If sig is 0, then no signal is sent, but error checking is still performed; this can be used to check for the existence of a process ID	or
       process group ID.

       For  a process to have permission to send a signal it must either be privileged (under Linux: have the CAP_KILL capability), or the real or
       effective user ID of the sending process must equal the real or saved set-user-ID of the target process.  In the case of  SIGCONT  it  suf-
       fices when the sending and receiving processes belong to the same session.

RETURN VALUE

       On success (at least one signal was sent), zero is returned.  On error, -1 is returned, and errno is set appropriately.

ERRORS

       EINVAL An invalid signal was specified.

       EPERM  The process does not have permission to send the signal to any of the target processes.

       ESRCH  The  pid or process group does not exist.  Note that an existing process might be a zombie, a process which already committed termi-
	      nation, but has not yet been wait(2)ed for.

CONFORMING TO

       SVr4, 4.3BSD, POSIX.1-2001.

NOTES

       The only signals that can be sent to process ID 1, the init process, are those for which init has  explicitly  installed  signal  handlers.
       This is done to assure the system is not brought down accidentally.

       POSIX.1-2001  requires  that  kill(-1,sig) send sig to all processes that the calling process may send signals to, except possibly for some
       implementation-defined system processes.  Linux allows a process to signal itself, but on Linux the call kill(-1,sig) does not  signal  the
       calling process.

       POSIX.1-2001  requires  that  if  a process sends a signal to itself, and the sending thread does not have the signal blocked, and no other
       thread has it unblocked or is waiting for it in sigwait(3), at least one unblocked signal must be delivered to the  sending  thread  before
       the kill() returns.

   Linux Notes
       Across  different  kernel  versions,  Linux has enforced different rules for the permissions required for an unprivileged process to send a
       signal to another process.  In kernels 1.0 to 1.2.2, a signal could be sent if the effective user ID of the  sender  matched  that  of  the
       receiver,  or  the  real user ID of the sender matched that of the receiver.  From kernel 1.2.3 until 1.3.77, a signal could be sent if the
       effective user ID of the sender matched either the real or effective user ID  of  the  receiver.   The  current	rules,	which  conform	to
       POSIX.1-2001, were adopted in kernel 1.3.78.

BUGS

       In  2.6	kernels up to and including 2.6.7, there was a bug that meant that when sending signals to a process group, kill() failed with the
       error EPERM if the caller did have permission to send the signal to any (rather than all) of the members of the	process  group.   Notwith-
       standing this error return, the signal was still delivered to all of the processes for which the caller had permission to signal.

SEE ALSO

       _exit(2), killpg(2), signal(2), sigqueue(2), tkill(2), exit(3), capabilities(7), credentials(7), signal(7)

COLOPHON

       This  page is part of release 3.25 of the Linux man-pages project.  A description of the project, and information about reporting bugs, can
       be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.

Linux								    2009-09-15								   KILL(2)