kill -- Command

Signal a process
kill [- signal ] pid ...

COHERENT assigns each active process a  unique process id, or pid, and uses
the pid  to identify the  process.  kill sends  signal to each  pid. signal
must be  one of the numbers described in  the header file <signal.h>.
The signal  can be given by  number or by name, as  defined in these header
files.  By default, signal is SIGTERM, which terminates a given process.

If pid is  zero, kill signals each process in  the same process group (that
is, every process started by the same user from the same tty).

If pid is negative (but not  -1), kill signals every process in the process
group whose ID equals the absolute value of pid.

If pid is -1, kill signals each process that you own.  If you are logged in
as the  superuser root, this signals every process  except processes 0 (the
kernel) and 1 (init).

The shell  prints the process id  of a process if  the command is detached.
The command ps prints a list  of all active processes, with process ids and
command-line arguments.

A user  can kill only  the processes he  owns; the superuser,  however, can
kill anything.  A process cannot ignore or catch SIGKILL.

See the  Lexicon article for signal()  for a table of  the signals and what
each means.

Files

<signal.h> -- Signals

See Also

commands,
getpid(),
init,
kill(),
ksh,
ps,
sh,
signal()

© 2012 by Stephen A. Ness