The killall
command is a powerful tool in the Linux command line that allows you to terminate processes by their name. It is a convenient way to stop multiple processes at once, saving you the time and effort of manually killing each process individually.
The basic syntax of the killall
command is killall process_name
, where process_name
is the name of the process you want to terminate. For example, to kill all instances of the firefox
process, you would use the command killall firefox
.
One useful feature of the killall
command is the ability to specify a signal to be sent to the processes being terminated. The default signal is SIGTERM
, which asks the process to terminate gracefully. However, you can also use other signals such as SIGKILL
to force the process to terminate immediately. To specify a signal, you can use the -s
option followed by the signal number or name. For example, to force all instances of the firefox
process to terminate immediately, you would use the command killall -s SIGKILL firefox
.
It’s important to note that the killall
command only works on processes that are owned by the current user. If you want to kill processes owned by other users, you will need to use the sudo
command to execute killall
with root privileges.
killall command examples
Here are some examples of how you can use the killall
command in Linux. To kill all instances of the firefox
process:
killall firefox
To kill all instances of the firefox
process and send a SIGKILL
signal to force the process to terminate immediately:
killall -s SIGKILL firefox
To kill all instances of the firefox
process owned by a specific user (replace username
with the actual username):
sudo killall -u username firefox
To kill all instances of the firefox
process with a process ID (PID) greater than 1000:
killall -P 1000 firefox
To kill all instances of the firefox
process with a process ID (PID) less than 1000:
killall -p 1000 firefox
killall command use cases
Here are some common use cases for the killall
command in Linux:
- Terminating a process that is unresponsive or behaving unexpectedly: If you have a process that is freezing or behaving unexpectedly, you can use
killall
to terminate it and potentially resolve the issue. - Terminating multiple instances of a process at once: If you have multiple instances of a process running and want to stop them all at once, you can use
killall
to do so. This can be especially useful if you are running a script or program that starts multiple processes and you want to stop all of them at once. - Stopping a process that is consuming a large amount of resources: If a process is consuming a large amount of CPU or memory, it can affect the performance of your system. In this case, you can use
killall
to terminate the process and free up resources. - Terminating processes owned by other users: If you need to stop a process that is owned by another user, you can use the
sudo
command to executekillall
with root privileges. This is useful if you are a system administrator and need to stop processes that are owned by other users. - Automating the termination of processes: You can use the
killall
command in a script or program to automate the process of stopping specific processes. This can be useful if you have a set of processes that you want to stop on a regular basis or as part of a larger workflow.
what is sigkill
SIGKILL
is a signal in Linux that is used to terminate a process immediately. It is a “non-catchable, non-ignorable kill signal” and is used when a process needs to be stopped immediately, regardless of its current state.
The SIGKILL
signal is one of several signals that can be sent to a process to request that it stop. Other signals include SIGTERM
, which asks the process to terminate gracefully, and SIGINT
, which requests that the process terminate itself when it is convenient to do so.
The SIGKILL
signal is often used as a last resort when other signals have failed to stop a process. It is a “forceful” signal that cannot be ignored or caught by the process, so it is guaranteed to terminate the process if it is sent.
You can use the killall
command to send the SIGKILL
signal to a process in Linux. For example, to force all instances of the firefox
process to terminate immediately, you would use the command killall -s SIGKILL firefox
.
It’s important to use the SIGKILL
signal responsibly, as it can terminate processes that may be critical to the functioning of your system. Always be sure to double-check the processes you are terminating before using SIGKILL
.
alternatives to the killall command
Some alternatives to the killall
command that you can use in Linux to terminate processes:
pkill
: Thepkill
command is similar tokillall
, but it allows you to specify a signal to be sent to the processes being terminated. It also has additional options for matching processes based on their PID, parent process ID, or terminal.kill
: Thekill
command allows you to terminate a process by its PID. You can use theps
command to find the PID of a process and then usekill
to terminate it.xkill
: Thexkill
command allows you to terminate a process by clicking on its window with the mouse. This can be convenient if you are unable to find the PID of a process or if the process is unresponsive and you can’t use other commands to stop it.systemctl
: If you are running a service or daemon that is managed bysystemd
, you can use thesystemctl
command to stop it. For example, to stop thenginx
service, you can use the commandsystemctl stop nginx
.
killall command vs kill command
The kill
command and the killall
command are both used to terminate processes in Linux, but they work in slightly different ways. Here is a comparison of the two commands:
kill
: Thekill
command allows you to terminate a process by its PID. You can use theps
command to find the PID of a process and then usekill
to terminate it. For example, to kill a process with PID 1234, you would use the commandkill 1234
.killall
: Thekillall
command allows you to terminate multiple processes at once by their name. It searches for all processes with the specified name and terminates them. For example, to kill all instances of thefirefox
process, you would use the commandkillall firefox
.
Some other key differences between kill
and killall
include:
- Signal specification:
kill
allows you to specify a signal to be sent to the process being terminated, whilekillall
uses the defaultSIGTERM
signal unless a different signal is specified with the-s
option. - User ownership:
killall
only works on processes that are owned by the current user. If you want to kill processes owned by other users, you will need to use thesudo
command to executekillall
with root privileges. - Process matching:
kill
only allows you to specify a PID to match processes, whilekillall
allows you to match processes based on their name, PID, parent process ID, or terminal.
Summary
Overall, the killall
command is a handy tool to have in your toolkit when working with Linux. Whether you need to terminate multiple processes at once or simply want a quick way to stop a specific process, killall
has you covered.