slay(8)

📦 version 3.0.2build1, in debian bookworm, debian trixie, ubuntu jammy, ubuntu noble, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

💅 slay(8) — the one where you end everyone 💀

okay bestie, so this page lives in the System Manager's Manual, section 8, and it's literally called slay. iconic name, iconic job. let's get into it 🎀

✨ NAME ✨

slay — kill all processes belonging to a user 🔥

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

slay [-signal] name [name...]

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so the vibe is: slay sends the signal you picked (KILL is the default, no cap) to every single process belonging to the user (or users, plural, the more the merrier 💅) that you name on the command line. it's giving cleanup era.

if you call it with no arguments at all? it just shows you a short help message. a little "hey bestie, here's how to use me" moment 🙈

and here's the cute part — you can use -clean as the signal name. when you do that, it's a "clean kill": the processes get sent TERM first, and then 10 seconds later, whatever hasn't terminated yet gets hit with KILL. polite first, unhinged second. main character energy fr fr ✨

💖 OPTIONS 💖

  • There are no options. that's it. that's the section. slay said "I'm built different" and refused to have options. periodt 👑

🌈 ENVIRONMENT 🌈

  • SLAY_BUTTHEAD — set this to on and slay goes into Butt-head mode (which has different messages than normal mode, yes really, that's the actual feature 💀). set it to off and you get normal mode. this environment variable overrides whatever setting is in /etc/slay_mode, so it wins the argument, slay.

🍓 FILES 🍓

  • /etc/slay_mode — holds keywords describing the mode slay works in, separated by newlines. the keywords are:
    • mean — turns mean mode on. in mean mode, attempts to slay people without root privileges are punished. this is the default. so like, don't try it without the right perms, bestie, I'm warning you 🫶
    • nice — turns mean mode off.
    • butthead — switches slay to Butt-head messages mode.
    • normal — switches slay to normal messages mode. this is the default.
okay important: you can only use one of the mean/nice keywords and one of the butthead/normal keywords. pick your combo and commit, no mixing 💅

😭 BUGS 😭

Unknown. like, genuinely unknown. if there are any, report them to the author and/or package maintainer. not me though, I'm just the messenger 💖

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Slay was written by Chris Ausbrooks <fish@bucket.ualr.edu>.

This man page was written by Pawel Wiecek <coven@debian.org>.

and that's the whole page, bestie!! it's slay(8) from the System Manager's Manual, and it's giving exactly what it needed to give. go forth and be responsible with that KILL default, mwah 💋✨

📦 where this page comes from