pkill
User Commands pgrep(1)NAME
pgrep, pkill - find or signal processes by name and other attributesSYNOPSIS
pgrep [ -flnvx ] [ -d delim ] [ -P ppidlist ] [ -g pgrplist ] [ -s sidlist ] [ -u euidlist ] [ -U uidlist ] [ -G gidlist ] [ -J projidlist ] [ -t termlist ] [ -T taskidlist ] [ pattern ] pkill [ -signal ] [ -fnvx ] [ -P ppidlist ] [ -g pgrplist ] [ -s sidlist ] [ -u euidlist ] [ -U uidlist ] [ -G gidlist ] [ -J projidlist ] [ -t termlist ] [ -T taskidlist ] [ pattern ]DESCRIPTION
The pgrep utility examines the active processes on the sys- tem and reports the process IDs of the processes whose attributes match the criteria specified on the command line. Each process ID is printed as a decimal value and is separated from the next ID by a delimiter string, which defaults to a newline. For each attribute option, the user can specify a set of possible values separated by commas on the command line. For example, pgrep -G other,daemon matches processes whose real group ID is other OR daemon. If multiple criteria options are specified, pgrep matches processes whose attributes match the logical AND of the cri- teria options. For example, pgrep -G other,daemon -U root,daemon matches processes whose attributes are: (real group ID is other OR daemon) AND (real user ID is root OR daemon) pkill functions identically to pgrep, except that each matching process is signaled as if by kill(1) instead of having its process ID printed. A signal name or number may be specified as the first command line option to pkill.OPTIONS
The following options are supported: - d delim Specifies the output delimiter string to be printed SunOS 5.8 Last change: 10 Jan 2000 1 User Commands pgrep(1) between each matching process ID. If no -d option is specified, the default is a newline character. The -d option is only valid when specified as an option to pgrep. -f The regular expression pattern should be matched against the full process argument string (obtained from the pr_psargs field of the /proc/nnnnn/psinfo file). If no -f option is specified, the expression is matched only against the name of the executable file (obtained from the pr_fname field of the /proc/nnnnn/psinfo file). -g pgrplist Matches only processes whose process group ID is in the given list. If group 0 is included in the list, this is interpreted as the process group ID of the pgrep or pkill process. -G gidlist Matches only processes whose real group ID is in the given list. Each group ID may be specified as either a group name or a numerical group ID. -J projidlist Matches only processes whose project ID is in the given list. Each project ID may be specified as either a project name or a numerical project ID. -l Long output format. Prints the process name along with the process ID of each matching process. The process name is obtained from the pr_psargs or pr_fname field, depending on whether the -f option was specified (see above). The -l option is only valid when specified as an option to pgrep. -n Matches only the newest (most recently created) pro- cess which meets all other specified matching cri- teria. -P ppidlist Matches only processes whose parent process ID is in the given list. -s sidlist Matches only processes whose process session ID is in in the given list. If ID 0 is included in the list, this is interpreted as the session ID of the pgrep or pkill process. -t termlist Matches only processes which are associated with a SunOS 5.8 Last change: 10 Jan 2000 2 User Commands pgrep(1) terminal in the given list. Each terminal is specified as the suffix following "/dev/" of the terminal's dev- ice path name in /dev. For example, term/a or pts/0. -T taskidlist Matches only processes whose task ID is in the given list. If ID 0 is included in the list, this is inter- preted as the task ID of the pgrep or pkill process. -u euidlist Matches only processes whose effective user ID is in the given list. Each user ID may be specified as either a login name or a numerical user ID. -U uidlist Matches only processes whose real user ID is in the given list. Each user ID may be specified as either a login name or a numerical user ID. -v Reverses the sense of the matching. Matches all processes except those which meet the specified match- ing criteria. -x Considers only processes whose argument string or exe- cutable file name exactly matches the specified pat- tern to be matching processes. The pattern match is considered to be exact when all characters in the pro- cess argument string or executable file name match the pattern. -signal Specifies the signal to send to each matched process. If no signal is specified, SIGTERM is sent by default. The value of signal can be one of the symbolic names defined in signal(3HEAD) without the SIG prefix, or the corresponding signal number as a decimal value. The -signal option is only valid when specified as the first option to pkill.OPERANDS
The following operand is supported: pattern Specifies an Extended Regular Expression (ERE) pattern to match against either the executable file name or full process argument string. See regex(5) for a com- plete description of the ERE syntax. EXAMPLES Example 1: Obtaining a process ID SunOS 5.8 Last change: 10 Jan 2000 3 User Commands pgrep(1) Obtain the process ID of sendmail: example% pgrep -x -u root sendmail 283 Example 2: Terminating a process Terminate the most recently created xterm: example% pkill -n xterm EXIT STATUS The following exit values are returned: 0 One or more processes were matched. 1 No processes were matched. 2 Invalid command line options were specified. 3 A fatal error occurred.FILES
/proc/nnnnn/psinfo process information filesATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attri- butes: ____________________________________________________________ | ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE | |_____________________________|_____________________________| | Availability | SUNWcsu | |_____________________________|_____________________________|SEE ALSO
kill(1), proc(1), ps(1), truss(1), kill(2), signal(3HEAD), proc(4), attributes(5), regex(5)NOTES
Both utilities match the ERE pattern argument against either the pr_fname or pr_psargs fields of the /proc/nnnnn/psinfo files. The lengths of these strings are limited according to definitions in <sys/procfs.h>. Patterns which can match strings longer than the current limits may fail to match the intended set of processes. SunOS 5.8 Last change: 10 Jan 2000 4 User Commands pgrep(1) If the pattern argument contains ERE meta-characters which are also shell meta-characters, it may be necessary to enclose the pattern with appropriate shell quotes. Defunct processes are never matched by either pgrep or pkill. The current pgrep or pkill process will never consider itself a potential match. SunOS 5.8 Last change: 10 Jan 2000 5