MKILL(8)

💅 MKILL (section 8) — bestie's guide to yeeting busy mount points

okay so real talk, this page lives in section 8 of the manual (that's the sysadmin-stuff section, iykyk) and it comes to you from The SuSE boot concept. it's giving "old but iconic." let's get into it 🎀

---

✨ NAME ✨

mkill — sends a signal to whichever processes are out here making an active mount point busy. like, the ones who won't let go. 😤

---

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

mkill [-SIG] [-u] /mnt1 [/mnt2...]
mkill [-l]

---

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

okay so here's the vibe. mkill goes and figures out all the active mount points from /proc/mounts, then compares that list against the mount points you handed it. then it goes hunting for the processes that are making those mount points busy. 🔍

and here's the cute little detail that matters: for that whole search, it only uses the links it finds in /proc/<pid>/. no cap. it does that specifically to avoid getting stuck hanging on files that are served up by network file systems like nfs(5). smart girl behavior honestly. 💅

the default signal is SIGTERM (y'know, for termination — the polite-but-firm ask). and if a mount point isn't active — like, it literally isn't found in /proc/mounts — then mkill will do exactly nothing. not a single thing. zero. nada. it just vibes. 🙈

---

🔥 OPTIONS 🔥

• -<SIG> — you can specify signals either by name (like -HUP, like -SIGHUP) or by number (like -1). whatever feels right, bestie. ✨
• -0 — the special signal 0 forces mkill to list all the processes making the specified mount point busy. it's the "just show me who's here" mode. no signals sent, just receipts. 👀
• -u — performs a lazy umount on the specified mount points before sending the signal SIGTERM or SIGKILL. it's the pre-game. 🫶
• -l — lists all known signals. your cheat sheet. your flashcards. your moment. 🌈

---

💜 EXAMPLES 💜

mkill -TERM /var

this will terminate all processes accessing a separate /var partition. bye bestie 👋💀

mkill -HUP /dev/pts

all processes using a pseudo-terminal slave will hangup. iconic. the ptys are getting the group-chat "we need to talk." 😭

---

🎀 RETURN VALUE 🎀

always success, which is that zero is returned. literally always zero. she doesn't do failure. slay. 💅

---

🧚 SEE ALSO 🧚

fuser(1), proc(5), umount(8).

go read those next, bestie, they're all in the same friend group fr fr.

---

👑 COPYRIGHT 👑

2008 Werner Fink, 2008 SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Germany.

---

🌟 AUTHOR 🌟

Werner Fink <werner@suse.de>

---

made with love by the 3rd Berkeley Distribution ✨ and dated Jan 31, 2008 — a literal classic, we stan an OG. drink water, unmount your partitions, and stay slay 💖