pkill: Easily Kill Linux Processes - A Guide

Simplifying Process Management in Linux

A significant advantage of the Linux operating system lies in its robust process control capabilities via the command line. Should an application cause a GUI freeze, administrators can remotely connect via SSH and terminate the problematic process. However, repeatedly identifying and terminating the same process can be time-consuming.

The Traditional Method of Process Termination

Historically, terminating processes involved a two-step procedure. First, the ps command, combined with grep, was used to locate the target process.

$ ps -ef | grep swiftfox
geek      7206 22694  0 Dec04 ?        00:00:00 /bin/sh /opt/swiftfox/swiftfox
geek      7209  7206  0 Dec04 ?        00:00:00 /bin/sh /opt/swiftfox/run-mozilla.sh /opt/swiftfox/swiftfox-bin
geek      7213  7209  0 Dec04 ?        00:04:29 /opt/swiftfox/swiftfox-bin
geek     14863 14224  0 18:19 pts/4    00:00:00 grep swiftfox

Subsequently, the kill command was employed, utilizing the process ID obtained from the previous step.

$ kill 7206

A More Efficient Approach: Utilizing pkill

A streamlined alternative to this process is the pkill command. If the process name, or even a portion of it, is known, pkill can directly terminate the process.

$ pkill swiftfox

This method significantly reduces the steps required for process termination. It's important to note that pkill will terminate all processes matching the specified search term.

To preview the processes that will be affected before executing pkill, the pgrep command can be used. The -l option displays both the process ID and the process name.

$ pgrep -l swiftfox
7206 swiftfox
7213 swiftfox-bin

This allows for verification of the target processes before termination. Frequent system administrators may find this command particularly useful when dealing with applications prone to instability.