PKILL(1) FreeBSD General Commands Manual PKILL(1)
NAME
pgrep, pkill - find or signal processes by name
SYNOPSIS
pgrep [-LSafilnoqvx] [-F pidfile] [-G gid] [-M core] [-N system]
[-P ppid] [-U uid] [-c class] [-d delim] [-g pgrp] [-j jail]
[-s sid] [-t tty] [-u euid] pattern ...
pkill [-signal] [-ILafilnovx] [-F pidfile] [-G gid] [-M core] [-N system]
[-P ppid] [-U uid] [-c class] [-g pgrp] [-j jail] [-s sid] [-t tty]
[-u euid] pattern ...
DESCRIPTION
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, excluding itself and all direct ancestors unless the -a
option is specified.
The pkill command searches the process table on the running system and
signals all processes that match the criteria given on the command line,
excluding itself and all direct ancestors unless the -a option is
specified.
The following options are available:
-F pidfile Restrict matches to a process whose PID is stored in the
pidfile file.
-G gid Restrict matches to processes with a real group ID in the
comma-separated list gid.
-I Request confirmation before attempting to signal each
process.
-L The pidfile file given for the -F option must be locked
with the flock(2) syscall or created with pidfile(3).
-M core Extract values associated with the name list from the
specified core instead of the currently running system.
-N system Extract the name list from the specified system instead of
the default, which is the kernel image the system has
booted from.
-P ppid Restrict matches to processes with a parent process ID in
the comma-separated list ppid.
-S Search also in system processes (kernel threads).
-U uid Restrict matches to processes with a real user ID in the
comma-separated list uid.
-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.
-a Include process ancestors in the match list. By default,
the current pgrep or pkill process and all of its ancestors
are excluded (unless -v is used). Note that the -a option
will not "unhide" the pgrep or pkill process itself, even
with -v.
-c class Restrict matches to processes running with specified login
class class.
-f Match against full argument lists. The default is to match
against process names.
-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.
-i Ignore case distinctions in both the process table and the
supplied pattern.
-j jail Restrict matches to processes inside the specified jails.
The argument jail may be "any" to match processes in any
jail, "none" to match processes not in jail, or a comma-
separated list of jail IDs or names.
-l Long output. For pgrep, 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. For pkill,
display the kill command used for each process killed.
-n Select only the newest (most recently started) of the
matching processes.
-o Select only the oldest (least recently started) of the
matching processes.
-q For pgrep, Do not write anything to standard output.
-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 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.
If any pattern operands are specified, they are used as extended regular
expressions to match the command name or full argument list of each
process. If the -f option is not specified, then the pattern will
attempt to match the command name. However, presently FreeBSD will only
keep track of the first 19 characters of the command name for each
process. Attempts to match any characters after the first 19 of a
command name will quietly fail.
Note that a running pgrep or pkill process will never consider itself nor
system processes (kernel threads) as a potential match.
IMPLEMENTATION NOTES
The Sun Solaris implementation utilised procfs to obtain process
information. This implementation utilises kvm(3) instead. On a live
system, kvm(3) uses kern.proc MIB to obtain the list of processes, kernel
memory through /dev/kmem is not accessed.
EXIT STATUS
The pgrep and pkill utilities 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.
3 An internal error occurred.
EXAMPLES
Show the pid of the process holding the /tmp/.X0-lock pid file:
$ pgrep -F /tmp/.X0-lock
1211
Show the pid and the name of the process including kernel threads in the
search:
$ pgrep -lS vnlru
37 vnlru
Search for processes including kernel threads that match the extended
regular expression pattern:
$ pgrep -S 'crypto.*[2-3]'
20
19
6
5
Show long output for firefox processes:
$ pgrep -l firefox
1312 firefox
1309 firefox
1288 firefox
1280 firefox
1279 firefox
1278 firefox
1277 firefox
1264 firefox
Same as above but just showing the pid of the most recent process:
$ pgrep -n firefox
1312
Look for vim processes. Match against the full argument list:
$ pgrep -f vim
44968
30790
Same as above but matching against the `list' word and showing the full
argument list:
$ pgrep -f -l list
30790 vim list.txt
Send SIGSTOP signal to processes that are an exact match:
$ pkill -SIGSTOP -f -x "vim list.txt"
Without -f names over 19 characters will silently fail:
$ vim this_is_a_very_long_file_name &
[1] 36689
$
[1]+ Stopped vim this_is_a_very_long_file_name
$ pgrep "vim this"
$
Same as above using the -f flag:
$ pgrep -f "vim this"
36689
Find the top(1) command running in any jail:
$ pgrep -j any top
34498
Show all processes running in jail ID 58:
$ pgrep -l -j58 '.*'
28397 pkg-static
28396 pkg-static
28255 sh
28254 make
COMPATIBILITY
Historically the option "-j 0" means any jail, although in other
utilities such as ps(1) jail ID 0 has the opposite meaning, not in jail.
Therefore "-j 0" is deprecated, and its use is discouraged in favor of
"-j any".
SEE ALSO
kill(1), killall(1), ps(1), flock(2), kill(2), sigaction(2), kvm(3),
pidfile(3), re_format(7)
HISTORY
The pkill and pgrep utilities first appeared in NetBSD 1.6. They are
modelled after utilities of the same name that appeared in Sun Solaris 7.
They made their first appearance in FreeBSD 5.3.
AUTHORS
Andrew Doran <ad@NetBSD.org>
FreeBSD 15.1-STABLE-HBSD June 24, 2025 PKILL(1)