Understanding how killall works using strace

Re:Understanding how killall works using strace by waeyn on Sunday December 22, 2013 @08:17PM (#6952554)

I learned that on UNIX System V machines such as Solaris, killall ignores parameters and just tries to kill everything [1]. Maybe it's better to use pkill on GNU/Linux instead.

1: http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19253-01/816-5166/killall-1m/inde...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Understanding how killall works using strace by k3oni on Sunday December 22, 2013 @10:40PM (#6953003)

Yep pkill is recommended on UNIX based OSs like Openindiana/Solaris etc. On these killall will actually do what it's name says :)

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Understanding how killall works using strace by vacri on Sunday December 22, 2013 @10:53PM (#6953033)

What's the use case of that?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Understanding how killall works using strace by moyix on Sunday December 22, 2013 @11:05PM (#6953058)

It survives in Linux as killall5 (the 5 being a reference to System V Unix). It's used during shutdown to send SIGTERM to all processes, then SIGKILL to kill off any stragglers.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Understanding how killall works using strace by midas007 on Monday December 23, 2013 @06:20AM (#6953846)

Cleaning up after a user's process that has something that's effectively a fork-bombing.

Also, terminating an employee.

[ Parent | on HN ]