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KILL(2)

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NAME    [Toc]    [Back]

       kill - send signal to a process

SYNOPSIS    [Toc]    [Back]

       #include <sys/types.h>
       #include <signal.h>

       int kill(pid_t pid, int sig);

DESCRIPTION    [Toc]    [Back]

       The  kill  system  call	can  be used to send any signal to any process
       group or process.

       If pid is positive, then signal sig is sent to pid.

       If pid equals 0, then sig is sent to every process in the process group
       of the current process.

       If  pid	equals	-1,  then  sig is sent to every process except for the
       first one.

       If pid is less than -1, then sig  is  sent  to  every  process  in  the
       process group -pid.

       If  sig	is 0, then no signal is sent, but error checking is still performed.

RETURN VALUE    [Toc]    [Back]

       On success, zero is returned.  On error, -1 is returned, and  errno  is
       set appropriately.

ERRORS    [Toc]    [Back]

       EINVAL An invalid signal was specified.

       ESRCH  The  pid or process group does not exist.  Note that an existing
	      process might be a zombie, a  process  which  already  committed
	      termination, but has not yet been wait()ed for.

       EPERM  The  process  does not have permission to send the signal to any
	      of the receiving processes.  For a process to have permission to
	      send  a  signal  to  process pid it must either have root privileges,
 or the real or effective user ID of the  sending  process
	      must  equal  the	real  or  saved  set-user-ID  of the receiving
	      process.	In the case of SIGCONT it suffices  when  the  sending
	      and receiving processes belong to the same session.

BUGS    [Toc]    [Back]

       It is impossible to send a signal to task number one, the init process,
       for which it has not installed a  signal  handler.   This  is  done  to
       assure the system is not brought down accidentally.

CONFORMING TO    [Toc]    [Back]

       SVr4, SVID, POSIX.1, X/OPEN, BSD 4.3

SEE ALSO    [Toc]    [Back]

      
      
       _exit(2), exit(3), signal(2), signal(7)



Linux 2.0.30			  1997-09-14			       KILL(2)
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