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Accepted
Fabiano Soriani
Asked: 2011-02-04 14:33:03 +0800 CST

Find a process by name and kill it

  • 772

So, I want to send a kill to a process, I know it's name

ps -ef | grep '_rails master'
root      2388     1  0 19:46 ?        00:00:04 unicorn_rails master -c /web/hero/config/unicorn.rb -E production -D                   
root      2582  2172  0 20:28 pts/0    00:00:00 grep --color=auto _rails master

It is unicorn_rails master [..] how do I kill it?

I tried so far: sed and expr. But cant pass it as param to kill

linux automation process

3 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    There exists a more direct command called pkill. Usage is as follows:

    $ pkill "process name here"
    • 9

  2. You can the command:

    $ sudo kill `pidof process_name`.

    You can use also:

    $ sudo killall process_name

    If you want to use grep, you can try:

    $ ps -ef | grep '_rails master' | grep -v grep | awk '{print $3}' | sudo kill
    • 1

  3. You can use the following: 

    ps -ef | grep [u]nicorn_rails | awk '{print $2}' | sudo xargs kill

    Note, the [] in 'grep [u]nicorn_rails' keeps you from matching on the grep command in the ps tree.

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