NAME

       killall - kill processes by name

SYNOPSIS

       killall [-Z, --context pattern] [-e, --exact] [-g, --process-group] [-i, --interactive] [-n, --ns PID]
       [-o, --older-than TIME] [-q, --quiet] [-r, --regexp] [-s, --signal 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.

       -n, --ns
              Match  against  the  PID  namespace  of  the given PID. Use 0 to match against all namespaces. The
              default is to match against the current PID namespace.

       -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 a POSIX extended regular expression, per regex(3).

       -s, --signal, -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 extended 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 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 correctly.

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

SEE ALSO

       kill(1), fuser(1), pgrep(1), pidof(1), pkill(1), ps(1), kill(2), regex(3).