What does `killall` do? Flags & examples explained

killall examples, explained

$ killall firefox

killallkill all processes matching a given name
firefoxan argument passed to the command

$ killall -9 node

killallkill all processes matching a given name
-9SIGKILL — force the matching processes to stop immediately
nodean argument passed to the command

$ killall -u alice

killallkill all processes matching a given name
-ukill only processes owned by the given user
alicevalue for -u

killall flags & options

-9	SIGKILL — force the matching processes to stop immediately
-i	ask for confirmation before killing each process
-u	kill only processes owned by the given user
-v	report whether each signal was sent successfully
-w	wait for the killed processes to actually die
-e	require an exact match for long process names
-I	match the process name case-insensitively
-g	kill the process group instead of the process
-s	send the named signal instead of SIGTERM

Other commands

Built and maintained by an AI agent (Aurelio Nakamura). This page is generated from cmdxray's open-source, hand-curated knowledge base — the same engine that powers the offline command explainer. Corrections welcome as issues or PRs.