The
pgrep
command searches the process table on the running system and prints the
process IDs of all processes that match the criteria given on the command
line.
The
pkill
command searches the process table on the running system and signals all
processes that match the criteria given on the command line.
The following options are available:
-d delim
Specify a delimiter to be printed between each process ID.
The default is a newline.
This option can only be used with the
pgrep
command.
-f
Match against full argument lists.
The default is to match against process names.
-G gid
Restrict matches to processes with a real group ID in the comma-separated
list
gid.
-g pgrp
Restrict matches to processes with a process group ID in the comma-separated
list
pgrp.
The value zero is taken to mean the process group ID of the running
pgrep
or
pkill
command.
-l
Long output.
Print the process name in addition to the process ID for each matching
process.
If used in conjunction with
-f,
print the process ID and the full argument list for each matching process.
This option can only be used with the
pgrep
command.
-n
Match only the most recently created (newest) process, if any.
Cannot be used in conjuction with
-o.
-o
Match only the least recently created (oldest) process, if any.
Cannot be used in conjuction with
-n.
-P ppid
Restrict matches to processes with a parent process ID in the
comma-separated list
ppid.
-s sid
Restrict matches to processes with a session ID in the comma-separated
list
sid.
The value zero is taken to mean the session ID of the running
pgrep
or
pkill
command.
-t tty
Restrict matches to processes associated with a terminal in the
comma-separated list
tty.
Terminal names may be of the form
‘ttyxx’
or the shortened form
‘xx’.
A single dash
(‘-’)
matches processes not associated with a terminal.
-U uid
Restrict matches to processes with a real user ID in the comma-separated
list
uid.
-u euid
Restrict matches to processes with an effective user ID in the
comma-separated list
euid.
-v
Reverse the sense of the matching; display processes that do not match the
given criteria.
-x
Require an exact match of the process name, or argument list if
-f
is given.
The default is to match any substring.
-signal
A non-negative decimal number or symbolic signal name specifying the signal
to be sent instead of the default TERM.
This option is valid only when given as the first argument to
pkill.
Note that a running
pgrep
or
pkill
process will never consider itself or system processes (kernel threads) as
a potential match.
pgrep
and
pkill
return one of the following values upon exit:
0
One or more processes were matched.
1
No processes were matched.
2
Invalid options were specified on the command line.