KILL(2)             Linux Programmer's Manual             KILL(2)

NAME
       kill - send signal to a process

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

       int kill(pid_t pid, int sig);

DESCRIPTION
       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.   In
       this  case,  0 is returned on success, or a negative value
       on error.

       If pid equals -1, then sig is sent to every process except
       for  the  first one, from higher numbers in the proc table
       to lower.  In this case, 0 is returned on success, or  the
       error condition resulting from signalling the last process
       is returned.

       If pid is less than -1, then sig is sent to every  process
       in  the  process  group -pid.  In this case, the number of
       processes the signal was sent to is returned, or  a  nega-
       tive value for failure.

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

ERRORS
       EINVAL An invalid signal is sent.

       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  effective userid of the process calling kill()
              is not equal to the effective userid of pid, unless
              the superuser called kill().

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

CONFORMING TO
       SVID, AT&T, POSIX.1, X/OPEN, BSD 4.3

Linux                    November 1, 1995                       1

KILL(2)             Linux Programmer's Manual             KILL(2)

SEE ALSO
       _exit(2), exit(2), signal(2), signal(7)

Linux                    November 1, 1995                       2