[X4U] Re: Tiger-unquittable/killable apps?- "Kill -9"

[Philip J Robar]

>> On May 20, 2005, at 2:18 PM, Michael Elliott wrote:
>>
>> You know, I keep seeing "kill -9" mentioned. I know how to use  
>> Terminal to kill a process like "Kill 257", but is "kill -9"  
>> something specific? I looked under man kill, and see that -9 is  
>> "KILL (non-catchable, non-ignorable)".  So when I kill a PID by  
>> typing "kill 257", is that "using kill -9"?

No, the default signal sent to the process is:

      15      TERM (software termination signal)

which a well written program will catch, i.e. notice, and deal with  
properly.

> On May 20, 2005, at 1:36 PM, Michael Nutt wrote:
>
> kill -9 is the WMD of process termination <g>  Just type "kill -9"  
> followed by your process number. Not sure if your normal admin  
> privileges are enough; otherwise, "sudo kill -9 (process number)".

"kill -9" should be the choice of last resort as it stops the process  
in the same way pulling the power cable on your computer stops it,  
the process doesn't get a change to clean up or save any information.

You can only kill processes that you own, otherwise you have to be  
root or have admin privileges.


Phil

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