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IT Support & Hardware · Foundational

kill Command

A Linux/macOS command that sends a signal to a process, typically to terminate it.

Definition

kill PID sends SIGTERM (15) to request a graceful stop, and kill -9 PID sends SIGKILL to force termination. Process IDs come from ps or top. killall and pkill target processes by name.

Example

kill -9 4821 terminates an unresponsive process.

Exam tip

Try SIGTERM first; use -9 only when a process will not exit.

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