NAME

killall − kill all active processes

SYNOPSIS

/etc/killall [ signal ]

DESCRIPTION

Killall is a procedure used by /etc/shutdown to kill all active processes not directly related to the shutdown procedure. 

Killall is chiefly used to terminate all processes with open files so that the mounted file systems will be unbusied and can be unmounted.  Killall sends the specified signal to all user processes in the system, with the following exceptions:

the init process;

all processes (including background processes) associated with the terminal from which killall was invoked;

any ps −ef process, if owned by root;

any sed −e process, if owned by root;

any shutdown process;

any killall process;

any /etc/rc process. 

Killall obtains its process information from ps(1), and thus may not be able to perfectly identify which processes to signal. 

If no signal is specified, a default of 9 (kill) is used. 

Killall is invoked automatically by shutdown(1M).  The use of shutdown is recommended over using killall by itself. 

FILES

/etc/shutdown

SEE ALSO

fuser(1M), kill(1), ps(1), shutdown(1M), signal(2). 

Hewlett-Packard Company  —  Version B.1,  May 11, 2021