KILLALL(L)                User Commands                KILLALL(L)



NAME
       killall - kill processes by name

SYNOPSIS
       killall [-e,--exact] [-g,--process-group] [-i,--interac-
       tive] [-q,--quiet] [-v,--verbose] [-w,--wait] [-V,--ver-
       sion] [-s,--signal signal] [--] name ...
       killall -l
       killall -V,--version

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 by
       number (e.g. -1).

       If the command name contains a slash (/),  processes  exe-
       cuting  that particular file will be selected for killing,
       independent of their name.

       killall returns a non-zero return code if no  process  has
       been  killed  for  any of the listed commands. If at least
       one process has been  killed  for  each  command,  killall
       returns zero.

       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  addi-
              tion to -e,

       -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.

       -q, --quiet
              Do not complain if no processes were killed.

       -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  pro-
              cesses  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 pro-
              cess stays in zombie state.

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.

AUTHORS
       Werner Almesberger <Werner.Almesberger@epfl.ch> wrote  the
       original  version of psmisc.  Since version 20 Craig Small
       <csmall@small.dropbear.id.au> can be blamed.

SEE ALSO
       kill(l), fuser(r), pgrep(p), pidof(f), ps(s), kill(l)



Linux                     March 25, 2001               KILLALL(L)