KILLALL(1)

✨ KILLALL(1) ✨

killall is the User Commands page for this one, bestie 🎀

💖 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

okay so killall sends a signal to all the processes running any of the commands you name 💅 If you don't pick a signal name, it sends SIGTERM by default. ngl that's the polite option 🫶

Signals can be picked by name (like -HUP or -SIGHUP), by number (like -1), or with the -s option 🦋

Here's the vibe: if the command name isn't a regular expression (that's -r) and it has a slash (/) in it, killall will go after any process running that particular file, no matter what it's named. Main character energy 👑

killall returns a zero return code if at least one process got killed for each command you listed. It also returns zero if you didn't list any commands at all and at least one process matched your -u and -Z search criteria. Otherwise it returns non-zero. 📉

And the iconic part: a killall process never kills itself 🙈 (it can kill other killall processes though, so be careful lol)

🎀 OPTIONS

• -e, --exact — require an exact match for super long names 💅 If a command name is longer than 15 characters, the full name might be unavailable (aka it's been swapped out). In that case killall would kill everything matching the first 15 characters, but with -e those entries get skipped. If you add -v along with -e, killall prints a message for each skipped entry ✨
• -I, --ignore-case — match process names without caring about upper or lower case 🌈
• -g, --process-group — kill the whole process group the process belongs to. The signal only gets sent once per group, even if you find multiple processes from the same group 🫧
• -i, --interactive — asks you for confirmation before killing anything. Protect your vibes 🛡️
• -l, --list — list all the signal names it knows 📜
• -n, --ns — match against the PID namespace of the PID you give it. By default it matches against all namespaces 🧩
• -o, --older-than — only match processes that are older (started before) the time you specify. The time is a float followed by a unit. The units are s, m, h, d, w, M, y for seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years 🕰️
• -q, --quiet — don't complain if no processes got killed 🤫
• -r, --regexp — treat the process name pattern as a POSIX extended regular expression, per regex(3) 🔍
• -s, --signal, -SIGNAL — send this signal instead of SIGTERM 🔥
• -u, --user — only kill processes owned by the user you specify. Command names are optional here 👤
• -v, --verbose — tells you if the signal was successfully sent 📣
• -V, --version — shows version info 🏷️
• -w, --wait — waits for all the killed processes to die. killall checks once per second if any of them still exist, and only returns once none are left. Heads up: killall may wait forever if the signal was ignored, had no effect, or if the process is stuck in zombie state 💀
• -y, --younger-than — only match processes that are younger (started after) the time you specify. The time is a float followed by a unit. The units are s, m, h, d, w, M, y for seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years 🌙
• -Z, --context — specify a security context, and only kill processes whose security context matches the extended regular expression pattern you give. This one has to come before all your other arguments on the command line 🛡️ Command names are optional here too 🦋

🗂️ FILES

• /proc — the location of the proc file system 📂

🙈 KNOWN BUGS

Killing by file only works for executables that are kept open during execution. So 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 a privileged user does it 🚨

killall -w can't tell if a process disappears and gets 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 on how many names you can specify on the command line. That number is the size of an unsigned long integer multiplied by 8. For most 32 bit systems the limit is 32, and for a 64 bit system the limit is usually 64 🔢

🔗 SEE ALSO

kill(1), fuser(1), pgrep(1), pidof(1), pkill(1), ps(1), kill(2), regex(3) 💜

that's the whole tea, bestie 🫶 this page is from psmisc, dated 2023-06-17 ✨ go slay your terminal 💅🌈