1:killall

From Linux Man Pages

      killall - kill processes by name
      

SYNOPSIS

      killall [-Z,--context pattern] [-e,--exact] [-g,--process-group] [-i,--interactive] [-q,--quiet] [-r,--regexp]
      [-s,--signal signal] [-u,--user user] [-v,--verbose] [-w,--wait] [-I,--ignore-case] [-V,--version] [--] 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) or by option -s.
 
      If the command name is not regular expression (option -r) and contains a slash (/), processes executing that par-
      ticular 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 com-
      mands were listed and at least one process matched the -u and -Z search criteria. killall returns non-zero other-
      wise.
 
      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.
 
      -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.
 
      -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.

RELATED

      kill(1), fuser(1), pgrep(1), pidof(1), pkill(1), ps(1), kill(2).

CATEGORY