kill

Sends a signal to a process, usually related to stopping the process.

All signals except for SIGKILL and SIGSTOP can be intercepted by the process to perform a clean exit.

More information.

• Terminate a program using the default SIGTERM (terminate) signal:

kill {process_id}

• List available signal names (to be used without the `SIG` prefix):

kill -l

• Terminate a background job:

kill %{job_id}

• Terminate a program using the SIGHUP (hang up) signal. Many daemons will reload instead of terminating:

kill -{1|HUP} {process_id}

• Terminate a program using the SIGINT (interrupt) signal. This is typically initiated by the user pressing `Ctrl + C`:

kill -{2|INT} {process_id}

• Signal the operating system to immediately terminate a program (which gets no chance to capture the signal):

kill -{9|KILL} {process_id}

• Signal the operating system to pause a program until a SIGCONT ("continue") signal is received:

kill -{17|STOP} {process_id}

• Send a `SIGUSR1` signal to all processes with the given GID (group id):

kill -{SIGUSR1} -{group_id}

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