xref: /original-bsd/bin/kill/kill.1 (revision 4da674f5)
1.\" Copyright (c) 1980, 1990 The Regents of the University of California.
2.\" All rights reserved.
3.\"
4.\" %sccs.include.redist.man%
5.\"
6.\"     @(#)kill.1	6.5 (Berkeley) 03/13/91
7.\"
8.Vx
9.Vx
10.Dd
11.Dt KILL 1
12.Os
13.Sh NAME
14.Nm kill
15.Nd terminate or signal a process
16.Sh SYNOPSIS
17.Nm kill
18.Op Fl signal_name
19.Ar pid
20\&...
21.Nm kill
22.Op Fl l
23.Sh DESCRIPTION
24The kill utility sends a signal to the process(es) specified
25by each pid operand. It is used to kill runaway or misbegotten
26processes, such as those
27.Em backgrounded
28with
29.Sq Li \&& .
30.Nm Kill
31is intelligent about who owns a process.
32.Pp
33Options available:
34.Pp
35.Tw Ds
36.Tp Fl signal_name
37A symbolic signal name. To find out all the possible signal names
38do a
39.Li kill -l .
40.Tp Fl l
41Available signal names are listed and are as found in
42.Pa /usr/include/signal.h ,
43stripped of the common SIG prefix.
44.Tp Fl signal_number
45A (nonnegative) decimal integer, representing the signal
46to be used instead of TERM as the sig argument in
47the effective call to
48.Xr kill 2 .
49.Tp
50.Pp
51Some of the more commonly used signals with kill:
52.Ds I
53.Cw XXX TERM
54.Cl -1	-1	(broadcast to all processes, super user only)
55.Cl 0	0	(sh(1) only, signals all members of process group)
56.Cl 2	INT	(interupt)
57.Cl 3	QUIT	(quit)
58.Cl 6	ABRT	(abort)
59.Cl 9	KILL	(non-catchable non-ignorable kill)
60.Cl 14	ALRM	(alarm clock)
61.Cl 15	TERM	(software termination signal)
62.Cw
63.De
64.Pp
65.Nm Kill
66is a built-in to
67.Xr csh  1  ;
68it allows job specifiers of the form ``%...'' as arguments
69so process id's are not as often used as
70.Nm kill
71arguments.
72See
73.Xr csh  1
74for details.
75.Sh SEE ALSO
76.Xr csh 1 ,
77.Xr ps 1 ,
78.Xr kill 2 ,
79.Xr sigvec 2
80.Sh HISTORY
81A
82.Nm kill
83command appeared in Version 6 AT&T Unix.
84.Sh BUGS
85A replacement for
86.Dq Li kill 0
87for
88.Xr csh  1
89users should be provided.
90