UnixCommands/Kill

NAME kill - send signals to processes, or list signals

SYNOPSIS

kill [ -s signal | -p ] [ -a ] [ -- ] pid ... kill -l [ signal ]

see: "man kill"

-l    Print   a   list   of   signal   names. These are  found  in              /usr/include/linux/signal.h --- 1) SIGHUP      2) SIGINT       3) SIGQUIT      4) SIGILL 5) SIGTRAP     6) SIGABRT      7) SIGBUS       8) SIGFPE 9) SIGKILL    10) SIGUSR1     11) SIGSEGV     12) SIGUSR2 13) SIGPIPE    14) SIGALRM     15) SIGTERM     17) SIGCHLD 18) SIGCONT    19) SIGSTOP     20) SIGTSTP     21) SIGTTIN 22) SIGTTOU    23) SIGURG      24) SIGXCPU     25) SIGXFSZ 26) SIGVTALRM  27) SIGPROF     28) SIGWINCH    29) SIGIO 30) SIGPWR     31) SIGSYS      35) SIGRTMIN    36) SIGRTMIN+1 37) SIGRTMIN+2 38) SIGRTMIN+3  39) SIGRTMIN+4  40) SIGRTMIN+5 41) SIGRTMIN+6 42) SIGRTMIN+7  43) SIGRTMIN+8  44) SIGRTMIN+9 45) SIGRTMIN+10 46) SIGRTMIN+11 47) SIGRTMIN+12 48) SIGRTMIN+13 49) SIGRTMIN+14 50) SIGRTMAX-14 51) SIGRTMAX-13 52) SIGRTMAX-12 53) SIGRTMAX-11 54) SIGRTMAX-10 55) SIGRTMAX-9 56) SIGRTMAX-8 57) SIGRTMAX-7 58) SIGRTMAX-6  59) SIGRTMAX-5  60) SIGRTMAX-4 61) SIGRTMAX-3 62) SIGRTMAX-2  63) SIGRTMAX-1  64) SIGRTMAX ---

No no no. Don't use kill -9.

It doesn't give the process a chance to cleanly:

1) shut down socket connections

2) clean up temp files

3) inform its children that it is going away

4) reset its terminal characteristics

and so on and so on and so on.

Generally, send 15, and wait a second or two, and if that doesn't work, send 2, and if that doesn't work, send 1. If that doesn't, REMOVE THE BINARY because the program is badly behaved!

Don't use kill -9. Don't bring out the combine harvester just to tidy up the flower pot.

Just another Useless Use of Usenet

from: "Useless use of "kill -9"-awards: by Randal"

http://groups.google.com/groups?oi=djq&as_usubject=useless+use+kill&num=25