PIDOF(F)       Linux System Administrator's Manual       PIDOF(F)



NAME
       pidof -- find the process ID of a running program.

SYNOPSIS
       pidof [-s] [-x] [-o omitpid] [-o omitpid..]  program [pro-
       gram..]

DESCRIPTION
       Pidof finds the process id's (pids) of the named programs.
       It  prints those id's on the standard output. This program
       is on some systems used in run-level change scripts, espe-
       cially  when  the system has a System-V like rc structure.
       In that case these  scripts  are  located  in  /etc/rc?.d,
       where  ?  is the runlevel. If the system has a start-stop-
       daemon (8) program that should be used instead.

OPTIONS
       -s     Single shot - this instructs the  program  to  only
              return one pid.

       -x     Scripts  too  -  this  causes  the  program to also
              return process id's of  shells  running  the  named
              scripts.

       -o     Tells pidof to omit processes with that process id.
              The special pid %PPID can be used to name the  par-
              ent  process  of  the pidof program, in other words
              the calling shell or shell script.

NOTES
       pidof is simply a (symbolic) link to the killall5 program,
       which should also be located in /sbin.

       When  pidof is invoked with a full pathname to the program
       it should find the pid of, it is reasonably  safe.  Other-
       wise  it  is possible that it returns pids of running pro-
       grams that happen to have the same  name  as  the  program
       you're after but are actually other programs.

SEE ALSO
       shutdown(n), init(t), halt(t), reboot(t)

AUTHOR
       Miquel van Smoorenburg, miquels@cistron.nl



                           01 Sep 1998                   PIDOF(F)