killall
kill processes by name
see also :
kill - fuser - pgrep - pidof - pkill - ps
Synopsis
killall
[-Z, --context
pattern]
[-e, --exact]
[-g, --process-group]
[-i, --interactive]
[-o, --older-than
TIME]
[-q, --quiet]
[-r, --regexp]
[-s, --signal
signal]
[-u, --user
user]
[-v, --verbose]
[-w, --wait]
[-y, --younger-than
TIME]
[-I, --ignore-case]
[-V, --version]
[--] name ...
killall -l
killall -V, --version
add an example, a script, a trick and tips
examples
source
killall Xvfb
killall skype
killall skypebot.py
source
killall wuserver
killall wuclient
killall wuproxy
source
killall php
killall python
killall java
source
killall generate_data
killall stest
killall stest
description
killall
sends a signal to all processes running any of the specified
commands. If no signal name is specified, SIGTERM is
sent.
Signals can be
specified either by name (e.g. -HUP or
-SIGHUP) or by number (e.g. -1) or by
option -s.
If the command
name is not regular expression (option -r) and
contains a slash (/), processes executing that
particular file will be selected for killing, independent of
their name.
killall
returns a zero return code if at least one process has been
killed for each listed command, or no commands were listed
and at least one process matched the -u and -Z search
criteria. killall returns non-zero otherwise.
A
killall process never kills itself (but may kill
other killall processes).
options
-e,
--exact
Require an exact match for very
long names. If a command name is longer than 15 characters,
the full name may be unavailable (i.e. it is swapped out).
In this case, killall will kill everything that
matches within the first 15 characters. With
-e, such entries are skipped. killall
prints a message for each skipped entry if -v
is specified in addition to -e,
-I,
--ignore-case
Do case insensitive process
name match.
-g,
--process-group
Kill the process group to which
the process belongs. The kill signal is only sent once per
group, even if multiple processes belonging to the same
process group were found.
-i,
--interactive
Interactively ask for
confirmation before killing.
-l,
--list
List all known signal
names.
-o,
--older-than
Match only processes that are
older (started before) the time specified. The time is
specified as a float then a unit. The units are
s,m,h,d,w,M,y for seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks,
Months and years respectively.
-q,
--quiet
Do not complain if no processes
were killed.
-r,
--regexp
Interpret process name pattern
as an extended regular expression.
-s,
--signal
Send this signal instead of
SIGTERM.
-u,
--user
Kill only processes the
specified user owns. Command names are optional.
-v,
--verbose
Report if the signal was
successfully sent.
-V,
--version
Display version
information.
-w,
--wait
Wait for all killed processes
to die. killall checks once per second if any of the
killed processes still exist and only returns if none are
left. Note that killall may wait forever if the
signal was ignored, had no effect, or if the process stays
in zombie state.
-y,
--younger-than
Match only processes that are
younger (started after) the time specified. The time is
specified as a float then a unit. The units are
s,m,h,d,w,M,y for seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks,
Months and years respectively.
-Z,
--context
(SELinux Only) Specify security
context: kill only processes having security context that
match with given expended regular expression pattern. Must
precede other arguments on the command line. Command names
are optional.
files
/proc
location of the proc file system
known bugs
Killing by file only works for executables that are kept open
during execution, i.e. impure executables can’t be killed this
way.
Be warned that typing killall name may not have the
desired effect on non-Linux systems, especially when done by a
privileged user.
killall -w doesn’t detect if a process disappears and is
replaced by a new process with the same PID between scans.
If processes change their name, killall may not be able to
match them correctly.
killall has a limit of names that can be specified on the
command line. This figure is the size of an unsigned long
multiplied by 8. For most 32 bit systems the limit is 32 and
similarly for a 64 bit system the limit is usually 64.
see also
kill ,
fuser , pgrep , pidof ,
pkill , ps , kill.