KILLALL(1)						   User Commands						KILLALL(1)



NAME
       killall - kill processes by name

SYNOPSIS
       killall [-Z,--context pattern] [-e,--exact] [-g,--process-group] [-i,--interactive] [-o,--older-than TIME] [-q,--quiet]
       [-r,--regexp] [-s,--signal signal] [-u,--user user] [-v,--verbose] [-w,--wait] [-y,--younger-than TIME] [-I,--ignore-case]
       [-V,--version] [--] name ...
       killall -l
       killall -V,--version

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 -SIGHUP ) or by number (e.g. -1) or by option -s.

       If the command name is not regular expression (option -r) and contains a slash (/),  processes  executing  that	particular
       file will be selected for killing, independent of their name.

       killall	returns  a  zero  return code if at least one process has been killed for each listed command, or no commands were
       listed and at least one process matched the -u and -Z search criteria. killall returns non-zero otherwise.

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

OPTIONS
       -e, --exact
	      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 addition to -e,

       -I, --ignore-case
	      Do case insensitive process name match.

       -g, --process-group
	      Kill  the  process group to which the process belongs. The kill signal is only sent once per group, even if multiple
	      processes belonging to the same process group were found.

       -i, --interactive
	      Interactively ask for confirmation before killing.

       -l, --list
	      List all known signal names.

       -o, --older-than
	      Match only processes that are older (started before) the time specified.	The time is specified as a  float  then  a
	      unit. The units are s,m,h,d,w,M,y for seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, Months and years respectively.

       -q, --quiet
	      Do not complain if no processes were killed.

       -r, --regexp
	      Interpret process name pattern as an extended regular expression.

       -s, --signal
	      Send this signal instead of SIGTERM.

       -u, --user
	      Kill only processes the specified user owns. Command names are optional.

       -v, --verbose
	      Report if the signal was successfully sent.

       -V, --version
	      Display version information.

       -w, --wait
	      Wait  for all killed processes to die. killall checks once per second if any of the killed processes 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.

       -y, --younger-than
	      Match  only  processes that are younger (started after) the time specified.  The time is specified as a float then a
	      unit. The units are s,m,h,d,w,M,y for seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, Months and years respectively.

       -Z, --context
	      (SELinux Only) Specify security context: kill only processes having security context that match with given  expended
	      regular expression pattern. Must precede other arguments on the command line. Command names are optional.

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  privi‐
       leged user.

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

       If processes change their name, killall may not be able to match them correctly.

       killall has a limit of names that can be specified on the command line.	This figure is the size of an unsigned long multi‐
       plied by 8. For most 32 bit systems the limit is 32 and similarly for a 64 bit system the limit is usually 64.

AUTHORS
       Werner  Almesberger    wrote  the  original  version  of  psmisc.  Since  version  20  Craig  Small
        can be blamed.

SEE ALSO
       kill(1), fuser(1), pgrep(1), pidof(1), pkill(1), ps(1), kill(2).



Linux							    2012-06-16							KILLALL(1)