Manual: killall

KILLALL(1)						User Commands						  KILLALL(1)

NAME
       killall - kill processes by name

SYNOPSIS
       killall [-Z, --context pattern] [-e, --exact] [-g, --process-group] [-i, --interactive] [-n, --ns PID]
       [-o, --older-than TIME] [-q, --quiet] [-r, --regexp] [-s, --signal SIGNAL, -SIGNAL] [-u, --user user] [-v, --verbose]
       [-w, --wait] [-y, --younger-than TIME] [-I, --ignore-case] [-V, --version] [--] name ...
       killall -l, --list
       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 -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 particu‐
       lar 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.

       -n, --ns
	      Match against the PID namespace of the given PID. The default is to match against all namespaces.

       -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 respec‐
	      tively.

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

       -r, --regexp
	      Interpret process name pattern as a POSIX extended regular expression, per regex(3).

       -s, --signal, -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 ex‐
	      ist 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  respec‐
	      tively.

       -Z, --context
	      Specify  security	 context: kill only processes having security context that match with given extended 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
       integer multiplied by 8.	 For most 32 bit systems the limit is 32 and similarly for a 64 bit system the limit is usu‐
       ally 64.

SEE ALSO
       kill(1), fuser(1), pgrep(1), pidof(1), pkill(1), ps(1), kill(2), regex(3).

psmisc							 2023-06-17						  KILLALL(1)