kill(1) [redhat man page]

KILL(1) 						     Linux Programmer's Manual							   KILL(1)

NAME

       kill - terminate a process

SYNOPSIS

       kill [ -s signal | -p ] [ -a ] [ -- ] pid ...
       kill -l [ signal ]

DESCRIPTION

       The command kill sends the specified signal to the specified process or process group.  If no signal is specified, the TERM signal is sent.
       The TERM signal will kill processes which do not catch this signal.  For other processes, it may be necessary to use the KILL  (9)  signal,
       since this signal cannot be caught.

       Most  modern  shells  have  a  builtin  kill function, with a usage rather similar to that of the command described here. The `-a' and `-p'
       options, and the possibility to specify pids by command name is a local extension.

OPTIONS

       pid... Specify the list of processes that kill should signal.  Each pid can be one of five things:

	      n      where n is larger than 0.	The process with pid n will be signaled.

	      0      All processes in the current process group are signaled.

	      -1     All processes with pid larger than 1 will be signaled.

	      -n     where n is larger than 1.	All processes in process group n are signaled.	When an argument of the form `-n' is given, and it
		     is  meant	to  denote  a process group, either the signal must be specified first, or the argument must be preceded by a `--'
		     option, otherwise it will be taken as the signal to send.

	      commandname
		     All processes invoked using that name will be signaled.

       -s signal
	      Specify the signal to send.  The signal may be given as a signal name or number.

       -l     Print a list of signal names.  These are found in /usr/include/linux/signal.h

       -a     Do not restrict the commandname-to-pid conversion to processes with the same uid as the present process.

       -p     Specify that kill should only print the process id (pid) of the named processes, and not send any signals.

SEE ALSO

       bash(1), tcsh(1), kill(2), sigvec(2), signal(7)

AUTHOR

       Taken from BSD 4.4.  The ability to translate process names to process ids was added by Salvatore Valente <svalente@mit.edu>.

Linux Utilities 						  14 October 1994							   KILL(1)

KILL(2) 						      BSD System Calls Manual							   KILL(2)

NAME

     kill -- send signal to a process

SYNOPSIS

     #include <signal.h>

     int
     kill(pid_t pid, int sig);

DESCRIPTION

     The kill() function sends the signal specified by sig to pid, a process or a group of processes.  Typically, Sig will be one of the signals
     specified in sigaction(2).  A value of 0, however, will cause error checking to be performed (with no signal being sent).	This can be used
     to check the validity of pid.

     For a process to have permission to send a signal to a process designated by pid, the real or effective user ID of the receiving process must
     match that of the sending process or the user must have appropriate privileges (such as given by a set-user-ID program or the user is the
     super-user).  A single exception is the signal SIGCONT, which may always be sent to any descendant of the current process.

     If pid is greater than zero:
	     Sig is sent to the process whose ID is equal to pid.

     If pid is zero:
	     Sig is sent to all processes whose group ID is equal to the process group ID of the sender, and for which the process has permission;
	     this is a variant of killpg(2).

     If pid is -1:
	     If the user has super-user privileges, the signal is sent to all processes excluding system processes and the process sending the
	     signal.  If the user is not the super user, the signal is sent to all processes with the same uid as the user, excluding the process
	     sending the signal.  No error is returned if any process could be signaled.

     For compatibility with System V, if the process number is negative but not -1, the signal is sent to all processes whose process group ID is
     equal to the absolute value of the process number.  This is a variant of killpg(2).

RETURN VALUES

     Upon successful completion, a value of 0 is returned.  Otherwise, a value of -1 is returned and errno is set to indicate the error.

ERRORS

     kill() will fail and no signal will be sent if:

     [EINVAL]		Sig is not a valid, supported signal number.

     [EPERM]		The sending process is not the super-user and its effective user id does not match the effective user-id of the receiving
			process.  When signaling a process group, this error is returned if any members of the group could not be signaled.

     [ESRCH]		No process or process group can be found corresponding to that specified by pid.

     [ESRCH]		The process id was given as 0, but the sending process does not have a process group.

SEE ALSO

     getpgrp(2), getpid(2), killpg(2), sigaction(2)

STANDARDS

     The kill() function is expected to conform to IEEE Std 1003.1-1988 (``POSIX.1'').

4th Berkeley Distribution					  April 19, 1994					 4th Berkeley Distribution