KILLALL(1)

NAME
       killall - kill processes by name

SYNOPSIS
       killall [-eiqvw] [-signal] name ...
       killall -l
       killall -V

DESCRIPTION
       killall sends a signal to all processes running any of the
       specified  commands.  If  no  signal  name  is  specified,
       SIGTERM is sent.

       Signals  can be specified either by name (e.g. -HUP) or by
       number (e.g. -1). Signal 0 (check if a process exists) can
       only be specified by number.

       If  the  command name contains a slash (/), processes exe-
       cuting that particular file will be selected for  killing,
       independent of their name.

       killall  returns  a non-zero return code if no process has
       been killed for any of the listed commands.  If  at  least
       one  process  has  been  killed  for each command, killall
       returns zero.

       A killall process never kills itself (but may  kill  other
       killall processes).

OPTIONS
       -e     Require  an  exact  match for very long names. If a
              command name is longer than 15 characters, the full
              name  may  be unavailable (i.e. it is swapped out).
              In this case, killall  will  kill  everything  that
              matches  within  the  first 15 characters. With -e,
              such entries are skipped.  killall prints a message
              for  each skipped entry if -v is specified in addi-
              tion to -e,

       -i     Interactively ask for confirmation before  killing.

       -l     List all known signal names.

       -q     Do not complain of no processes were killed.

       -v     Report if the signal was successfully sent.

       -V     Display version information.

       -w     Wait  for  all  killed  processes  to  die. killall
              checks once per second if any of  the  killed  pro-
              cesses  still  exist  and  only returns if none are
              left.  Note that killall may wait  forever  if  the
              signal  was  ignored,  had  no  effect,  or  if the
              process stays in zombie state.

FILES
       /proc     location of the proc file system

KNOWN BUGS
       Killing by file only works for executables that  are  kept
       open  during  execution,  i.e. 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 done
       by a privileged user.

       killall -w doesn't detect if a process disappears  and  is
       replaced by a new process with the same PID between scans.

AUTHOR
       Werner Almesberger lt;werner.almesberger@lrc.di.epfl.ch

SEE ALSO
       kill(1) fuser(1) pidof(1) ps(1) kill(2)