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On Sat, 29 Aug 2009 17:39:21 +0000 (UTC) |
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Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@×××.net> wrote: |
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> |
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> Note that there's also the killall command, which according to the |
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> manpage, kills "processes by name". Of course, it'll kill /all/ the |
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> processes by that name, so may not be what you want if you have multiple |
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> separate firefox processes running at the same time, for instance, but |
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> it's very useful, none-the-less, since where it /can/ be used, it saves |
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> the step of looking up the pid. |
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> |
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Yes, that's all quite true, but there still may be problems. |
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After I start a single instance of firefox, here is what "ps ax" shows: |
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1987 ? S 0:00 /bin/sh /usr/local/bin/firefox |
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1999 ? S 0:00 /bin/sh /opt/firefox35/run-mozilla.sh /opt/firefox35/firefox-bi |
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2003 ? Sl 0:00 /opt/firefox35/firefox-bin |
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There are already three processes associated with this single instance, |
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and the names are not obvious. To kill all of them, it will usually suffice |
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to kill only the last process which in this case is 2003. But that |
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strategy won't always work. It's always best to check with ps and kill |
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what needs to be killed. |
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> Also, with both kill and killall, the "s " shouldn't be needed. kill -9 |
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> PID or killall -9 name should work, tho both will also take the -s form, |
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> too. FWIW, they'll also take the named signal. -15/-TERM is the default |
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> if no signal is specified. That tries to kill an application gracefully, |
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> giving it time to save its work or whatever. As such, it may or may not |
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> work. -9/-KILL is the "kill and I really mean it" signal, NOT allowing |
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> the application a graceful exit, simply directing the kernel to kill it |
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> outright. |
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> |
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Yes, that's also very true, but I figure that if Flash Player is crashing |
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firefox, a "kill -s 9" is in order. The best course would be to first attempt |
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a "kill PID" with no options. This will allow the process, as you indicate, |
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to close any open file handles, etc. But if "kill PID" should fail, then |
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"kill -s 9 PID" will almost certainly stop the process in a quick and brutal |
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fashion. Again, use the ps command to check the result. Sometimes, however, |
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as you indicate, even "kill -s 9" will fail and a reboot is the only way to |
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eliminate the process. |
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Frank Peters |
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