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KILLALL(1)			  User Commands 		      KILLALL(1)

NAME
     killall - kill processes by name

SYNOPSIS
     killall [-Z,--context pattern] [-e,--exact] [-g,--process-group] [-i,--in-
     teractive] [-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 com-
     mands. If no signal name is specified, SIGTERM is sent.

     Signals can be specified either by name (e.g. -HUP or -SIGHUP ) or by  num-
     ber (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 speci-
	    fied.   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 op-
	    tional.

     -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 ig-
	    nored, had no effect, or if the process stays in zombie state.

     -y, --younger-than
	    Match only processes that are younger (started after) the time spec-
	    ified.  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 execu-
     tion, 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.

     If  processes change their name, killall may not be able to match them cor-
     rectly.

AUTHORS
     Werner Almesberger <werner@almesberger.net> wrote the original  version  of
     psmisc. Since version 20 Craig Small <csmall@enc.com.au> can be blamed.

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

Linux				   2011-02-22			      KILLALL(1)

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