SKILL(1)

💖 SKILL(1) — the manual page bestie 💖

okay so you opened the skill and snice manual page, from the General Commands Manual section, and honestly? we're about to have a moment. grab a snack. 🍓

---

✨ NAME ✨

skill, snice — send a signal or report process status. that's it, that's the whole job. sending vibes (signals) to your processes or just peeking at what they're up to. 👑

---

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

skill [signal-option] [other-option ...] expression

snice [new-priority] [option ...] expression

---

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

okay bestie, real talk first. 🫶

These tools are obsolete and unportable. the command syntax is poorly defined. like, genuinely. please consider using killall, pkill, and pgrep instead. this is your sign. this is the universe telling you. ✨

so. the default signal for skill is TERM. use -l or -L to list available signals — that's your menu, order whatever you want. particularly useful signals include HUP, INT, KILL, STOP, CONT, and 0. alternate signals may be specified in three ways: -9, -SIGKILL, -KILL. three whole ways. pick your fighter. 💅

the default priority for snice is +4. priority numbers range from +20 (slowest) to -20 (fastest). and listen — negative priority numbers are restricted to administrative users, no cap. so if you're not admin and you try to go negative? that's a no from the kernel, girlie. 💀

---

✨ OPTIONS ✨

• -f, --fast — Fast mode. literally has not been implemented. it's giving "coming soon" but forever. 😭
• -i, --interactive — Interactive use. you will be asked to approve each action. consent is key, always. 🎀
• -l, --list — List all signal names. the full roster, no filter.
• -L, --table — List all signal names in a nice table. same info, but make it fashion. 💅
• -n, --no-action — No action; perform a simulation of events that would occur but do not actually change the system. a dress rehearsal. a vision board. nothing real happens. 🦋
• -v, --verbose — Verbose; explain what is being done. the tool starts narrating its own life. main character energy fr.
• -w, --warnings — Enable warnings. also not implemented. two for two on the vaporware, iconic behavior honestly. 🙈
• -h, --help — Display help text and exit.
• -V, --version — Display version information.

---

✨ PROCESS SELECTION OPTIONS ✨

so like, how do you tell it which processes you mean? selection criteria can be: terminal, user, pid, command. the options below may be used to ensure correct interpretation — i.e. so it doesn't guess wrong and embarrass you both. 🌸

• -t tty, --tty tty — the next expression is a terminal (tty or pty).
• -u user, --user user — the next expression is a username.
• -p pid, --pid pid — the next expression is a process ID number.
• -c command, --command command — the next expression is a command name.
• --ns pid — match the processes that belong to the same namespace as pid.
• --nslist ns,... — list which namespaces will be considered for the --ns option. available namespaces: ipc, mnt, net, pid, user, uts.

---

✨ SIGNALS ✨

the behavior of signals is explained in signal(7) manual page. go read that one if you want the deep lore. ⭐

---

✨ EXAMPLES ✨

because seeing it is believing it, bestie 💖

snice -c seti -c crack +7

slow down seti and crack commands. like telling your friends to chill, but for CPU. 🐌

skill -KILL -t /dev/pts/*

kill users on PTY devices. harsh? yes. effective? also yes. 💀

skill -STOP -u viro -u lm -u davem

stop three users. just three. very specific. very targeted. 🎯

---

✨ SEE ALSO ✨

kill(1), kill(2), killall(1), nice(1), pkill(1), renice(1), signal(7)

(the friend group. the whole squad. go say hi.) 👑

---

✨ STANDARDS ✨

No standards apply. not a single one. it's ungoverned and it knows it. 🌈

---

✨ AUTHOR ✨

Albert Cahalan wrote skill and snice in 1999 as a replacement for a non-free version. a legend, a pioneer, an icon. 🎀

---

✨ REPORTING BUGS ✨

found something cursed? please send bug reports to procps@freelists.org. tell them everything. we love a detailed bug report. 💜

---

and that's the whole page, bestie!! ✨ this beauty came from procps-ng and it's dated 2024-08-01. you're now officially skilled (and snice'd). go forth, send signals responsibly, and remember — it's obsolete, so maybe use pkill instead. no cap. 💖🦋🌸