kill

Send a signal to a process.

Potentially destructive Last updated: 2026-07-05 Report error

Syntax

$kill [OPTIONS] PID...

Examples

$kill 1234

Examples

$kill -9 1234

Shortcuts

kill -9 PID (force kill process)

kill -HUP PID (reload configuration)

Typical use cases

Graceful stop

kill PID

Force stop

kill -9 PID

Reload service

kill -HUP PID

Note SIGTERM (default) requests graceful exit; SIGKILL (-9) forces termination.

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