<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><BR><DIV><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">On May 20, 2005, at 2:18 PM, Michael Elliott wrote:</DIV><BR><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"></BLOCKQUOTE></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">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)".<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>So when I kill a PID by typing "kill 257", is that "using kill -9"?</DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></BLOCKQUOTE><BR></DIV><DIV>No, the default signal sent to the process is:</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV> 15 TERM (software termination signal)</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>which a well written program will catch, i.e. notice, and deal with properly.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><DIV><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV>On May 20, 2005, at 1:36 PM, Michael Nutt wrote:</DIV><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"></BLOCKQUOTE></BLOCKQUOTE><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV><BR></DIV><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"></BLOCKQUOTE></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">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)".</DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#006312"></FONT></DIV><DIV>"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.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>You can only kill processes that you own, otherwise you have to be root or have admin privileges.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Phil</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV></BODY></HTML>