The
kill utility sends a signal to the process(es) specified by the pid operand(s).
Only the super-user may send signals to other users' processes.
The options are as follows:
-s signal_name
A symbolic signal name specifying the signal to be sent instead of the default TERM.
-l [exit_status]
Display the name of the signal corresponding to
exit_status.
exit_status may be the exit status of a command killed by a signal (see the special
sh(1) parameter ‘?') or a signal number.
If no operand is given, display the names of all the signals.
-signal_name
A symbolic signal name specifying the signal to be sent instead of the default TERM.
-signal_number
A non-negative decimal integer, specifying the signal to be sent instead of the default TERM.
The following pids have special meanings:
-1
If superuser, broadcast the signal to all processes; otherwise broadcast to all processes belonging to the user.
0
Broadcast the signal to all processes in the current process group belonging to the user.
Some of the more commonly used signals:
9
KILL (non-catchable, non-ignorable kill)
15
TERM (software termination signal)
kill is a built-in to
csh(1); it allows job specifiers of the form ``%...'' as arguments so process id's are not as often used as
kill arguments. See
csh(1) for details.