pkill man page on OpenBSD

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PKILL(1)		   OpenBSD Reference Manual		      PKILL(1)

NAME
     pgrep, pkill - find or signal processes by name

SYNOPSIS
     pgrep [-flnovx] [-d delim] [-G gid] [-g pgrp] [-P ppid] [-s sid] [-t tty]
	   [-U uid] [-u euid] [pattern ...]
     pkill [-signal] [-fnovx] [-G gid] [-g pgrp] [-P ppid] [-s sid] [-t tty]
	   [-U uid] [-u euid] [pattern ...]

DESCRIPTION
     The pgrep command searches the process table on the running system and
     prints the process IDs of all processes that match the criteria given on
     the command line.

     The pkill command searches the process table on the running system and
     signals all processes that match the criteria given on the command line.

     The following options are available:

     -d delim
	     Specify a delimiter to be printed between each process ID.	 The
	     default is a newline.  This option can only be used with the
	     pgrep command.

     -f	     Match against full argument lists.	 The default is to match
	     against process names.

     -G gid  Restrict matches to processes with a real group ID in the comma-
	     separated list gid.

     -g pgrp
	     Restrict matches to processes with a process group ID in the
	     comma-separated list pgrp.	 The value zero is taken to mean the
	     process group ID of the running pgrep or pkill command.

     -l	     Long output.  Print the process name in addition to the process
	     ID for each matching process.  If used in conjunction with -f,
	     print the process ID and the full argument list for each matching
	     process.  This option can only be used with the pgrep command.

     -n	     Match only the most recently created (newest) process, if any.
	     Cannot be used in conjunction with -o.

     -o	     Match only the least recently created (oldest) process, if any.
	     Cannot be used in conjunction with -n.

     -P ppid
	     Restrict matches to processes with a parent process ID in the
	     comma-separated list ppid.

     -s sid  Restrict matches to processes with a session ID in the comma-
	     separated list sid.  The value zero is taken to mean the session
	     ID of the running pgrep or pkill command.

     -t tty  Restrict matches to processes associated with a terminal in the
	     comma-separated list tty.	Terminal names may be of the form
	     `ttyxx' or the shortened form `xx'.  A single dash (`-') matches
	     processes not associated with a terminal.

     -U uid  Restrict matches to processes with a real user ID in the comma-
	     separated list uid.

     -u euid
	     Restrict matches to processes with an effective user ID in the
	     comma-separated list euid.

     -v	     Reverse the sense of the matching; display or signal processes
	     that do not match the given criteria.

     -x	     Require an exact match of the process name, or argument list if
	     -f is given.  The default is to match any substring.

     -signal
	     A non-negative decimal number or symbolic signal name specifying
	     the signal to be sent instead of the default TERM.	 This option
	     is valid only when given as the first argument to pkill.

     If any pattern operands are specified, they are used as regular
     expressions to match the command name or, if -f is specified, the full
     argument list of each process.  However, presently OpenBSD will only keep
     track of the first 16 characters of the command name for each process.
     Attempts to match any characters after the first 16 of a command name
     will silently fail.

     Note that a running pgrep or pkill process will never consider itself or
     system processes (kernel threads) as a potential match.

EXIT STATUS
     The pgrep and pkill utilities exit with one of the following values:

	   0	   One or more processes were matched.
	   1	   No processes were matched.
	   2	   Invalid options were specified on the command line.
	   3	   An internal error occurred.

SEE ALSO
     grep(1), kill(1), ps(1), kill(2), sigaction(2), re_format(7)

HISTORY
     pkill and pgrep first appeared in OpenBSD 3.5.  They are modelled after
     utilities of the same name that appeared in Sun Solaris 7.

AUTHORS
     Andrew Doran <ad@NetBSD.org>.

OpenBSD 4.9		      September 29, 2010		   OpenBSD 4.9
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