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32 .Nd kill processes by name
46 utility kills processes selected by name, as opposed to the selection by PID
49 By default, it will send a
51 signal to all processes with a real UID identical to the
56 The super-user is allowed to kill any process.
58 The options are as follows:
59 .Bl -tag -width ".Fl c Ar procname"
61 Be more verbose about what will be done.
64 option, a list of the processes that will be sent the signal will be
65 printed, or a message indicating that no matching processes have been
68 Use the effective user ID instead of the (default) real user ID for matching
69 processes specified with the
73 Give a help on the command usage and exit.
75 List the names of the available signals and exit, like in
80 as a (case sensitive) regular expression against the names
83 This is dangerous, a single dot will match any process
84 running under the real UID of the caller.
86 Show only what would be done, but do not send any signal.
88 Send a different signal instead of the default
90 The signal may be specified either as a name
91 (with or without a leading
95 Kill processes in the specified
98 Limit potentially matching processes to those belonging to
102 Limit potentially matching processes to those running on
106 Limit potentially matching processes to those matching
111 This should not have any effect except to print a few error messages
112 if there are zombie processes that match the specified pattern.
115 Sending a signal to all processes with the given UID
116 is already supported by
121 .Dq Li "kill -TERM -1
123 .Dq Li "echo kill -TERM -1 | su -m <user>" ) .
127 utility exits 0 if some processes have been found and
128 signalled successfully.
129 Otherwise, a status of 1 will be
132 Diagnostic messages will only be printed if requested by
145 It has been modeled after the
147 command as available on other platforms.
152 program was originally written in Perl and was contributed by
153 .An Wolfram Schneider ,
154 this manual page has been written by
156 The current version of
158 was rewritten in C by