I have process id in a file "pid" I'd like to kill it.
Something like:
kill -9 <read pid from file>
I tried:
kill -9 `more pid`
but it does not work. I also tried xargs but can't get my head around it.
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John Rudy
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Igor Katkov
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I think it's the `more` bit that is killing it b/c `more` might be expecting user input. – BCS Nov 10 '09 at 22:59
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http://www.speculation.org/garrick/kill-9.html – Sinan Ünür Nov 10 '09 at 23:50
5 Answers
13
Does
kill -9 $(cat pid)
work for you?
sdtom
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1+1. I prefer the $() method over backticks, since you can nest them. – paxdiablo Nov 10 '09 at 22:54
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Let me summarize all answers
kill -9 $(cat pid)
kill -9 `cat pid`
cat pid | xargs kill -9
Igor Katkov
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my preference is
kill -9 `cat pid`
that will work for any command in the backticks.
BCS
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You should be starting off gradually and then move up to the heavy stuff to kill the process if it doesn't want to play nicely.
A SIGKILL (-9) signal can't be caught and that will mean that any resources being held by the process won't be cleaned up.
Try using a kill SIGTERM (-15) first and then check for the presence of the process still by doing a kill -0 $(cat pid). If it is still hanging around, then by all means clobber it with -9.
SIGTERM can be caught by a process and any process that has been properly written should have a signal handler to catch the SIGTERM and then clean up its resources before exiting.
