SKILL(1)                                                  User Commands                                                  SKILL(1)

NAME
       skill, snice - send a signal or report process status

SYNOPSIS
       skill [signal] [options] expression
       snice [new priority] [options] expression

DESCRIPTION
       These  tools  are  obsolete and unportable.  The command syntax is poorly defined.  Consider using the killall, pkill, and
       pgrep commands instead.

       The default signal for skill is TERM.  Use -l or -L to list available signals.  Particularly useful signals  include  HUP,
       INT, KILL, STOP, CONT, and 0.  Alternate signals may be specified in three ways: -9 -SIGKILL -KILL.

       The default priority for snice is +4.  Priority numbers range from +20 (slowest) to -20 (fastest).  Negative priority num‐
       bers are restricted to administrative users.

OPTIONS
       -f, --fast
              Fast mode.  This option has not been implemented.

       -i, --interactive
              Interactive use.  You will be asked to approve each action.

       -l, --list
              List all signal names.

       -L, --table
              List all signal names in a nice table.

       -n, --no-action
              No action; perform a simulation of events that would occur but do not actually change the system.

       -v, --verbose
              Verbose; explain what is being done.

       -w, --warnings
              Enable warnings.  This option has not been implemented.

       -h, --help
              Display help text and exit.

       -V, --version
              Display version information.

PROCESS SELECTION OPTIONS
       Selection criteria can be: terminal, user, pid, command.  The options below may be used to ensure correct interpretation.

       -t, --tty tty
              The next expression is a terminal (tty or pty).

       -u, --user user
              The next expression is a username.

       -p, --pid pid
              The next expression is a process ID number.

       -c, --command command
              The next expression is a command name.

       --ns pid
              Match the processes that belong to the same namespace as pid.

       --nslist ns,...
              list which namespaces will be considered for the --ns option.  Available namespaces: ipc, mnt, net, pid, user, uts.

SIGNALS
       The behavior of signals is explained in signal(7) manual page.

EXAMPLES
       snice -c seti -c crack +7
              +Slow down seti and crack commands.

       skill -KILL -t /dev/pts/*
              Kill users on PTY devices.

       skill -STOP -u viro -u lm -u davem
              Stop three users.

SEE ALSO
       kill(1), kill(2), killall(1), nice(1), pkill(1), renice(1), signal(7)

STANDARDS
       No standards apply.

AUTHOR
       Albert Cahalan wrote skill and snice in 1999 as a replacement for a non-free version.

REPORTING BUGS
       Please send bug reports to procps@freelists.org

procps-ng                                                   2023-08-19                                                   SKILL(1)