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KILL(1) FreeBSD General Commands Manual KILL(1) NAME kill - terminate or signal a process SYNOPSIS kill [-s signal_name] pid ... kill -l [exit_status] kill -signal_name pid ... kill -signal_number pid ... DESCRIPTION The kill utility sends a signal to the processes specified by the pid operands. 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] If no operand is given, list the signal names; otherwise, write the signal name corresponding to exit_status. -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. Some of the more commonly used signals: 1 HUP (hang up) 2 INT (interrupt) 3 QUIT (quit) 6 ABRT (abort) 9 KILL (non-catchable, non-ignorable kill) 14 ALRM (alarm clock) 15 TERM (software termination signal) Some shells may provide a builtin kill command which is similar or identical to this utility. Consult the builtin(1) manual page. EXIT STATUS The kill utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs. EXAMPLES Terminate the processes with PIDs 142 and 157: kill -- -117 SEE ALSO builtin(1), csh(1), killall(1), ps(1), sh(1), kill(2), sigaction(2) STANDARDS The kill utility is expected to be IEEE Std 1003.2 ("POSIX.2") compatible. HISTORY A kill command appeared in Version 3 AT&T UNIX in section 8 of the manual. BUGS A replacement for the command "kill 0" for csh(1) users should be provided. FreeBSD 14.0-RELEASE-p11 October 3, 2016 FreeBSD 14.0-RELEASE-p11