How to kill all processes in Linux

Question

I want to kill all processes on my computer. Which command can I use to do so?

score 40 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 08 '10 at 23:46

40

The command killall5 -9 will forcefully terminate all running processes except your login shell, init, and kernel-specific processes.

More information here: http://linux.about.com/library/cmd/blcmdl8_killall5.htm

answered Jul 08 '10 at 23:46

rakuo15

526

score 32 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 08 '10 at 23:42

32

shutdown -h now

answered Jul 08 '10 at 23:42

score 14 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 09 '10 at 05:17

You can kill all of a given user's processes using one of these:

killall -u username

or

pkill -u username

or you can use the numeric UID instead of the username.

Beware that killall functions differently (similarly to killall5) on some systems such as Solaris.

sml · Answer 4 · 2012-02-08T03:35:21.497

8

The easiest way is to use the Magic SysRq key : Alt+SysRq+i. This will kill all processes except for init.

Alt+SysRq+o will shut down the system (killing init also).

Note that you may need to set the keyboard to XLATE mode first : Alt+SysRq+r

Also note that on some modern keyboards, you have to use PrtSc rather than SysRq.

edited Feb 08 '12 at 03:35

answered Jul 27 '10 at 07:47

sml

2,020

x3ja · Answer 5 · 2010-07-09T01:35:40.647

7

In some Linux distros, you can switch to Run Level 0 - which I think is halted, but still switched on:

sudo telinit 0

I've actually heard of this being used for dedicated firewall servers since it keeps some of the needed low-level kernel stuff loaded like iptables... weird eh? See here for more info.

To see which distros do what at each runlevel, have a look here.

edited Jul 09 '10 at 01:35

answered Jul 09 '10 at 00:50

x3ja

317

score 6 · Answer 6 · answered Jul 08 '10 at 23:50

To kill all processes owned by the current user you can do:

ps x | awk {'print $1'} | xargs kill

This will of course, also kill the shell you are currently logged in from. If you don't want that behaviour, try raku015's answer.

Note that if you run this as the root user, bad things will happen.

score 4 · Answer 7 · answered Feb 01 '12 at 16:19

4

The quickest, most foolproof way to kill all processes is to pull the power cord from the wall.

answered Feb 01 '12 at 16:19

Doug Harris

28,397

score 3 · Answer 8 · answered Oct 09 '18 at 05:56

I would use below command. (This is the one I use when I stuck)

kill -9 -1

This will kill all processes. My Environment is Ubuntu. If I type this in the terminal, it will close all the processes and will bring you to login screen (almost like logged off)

score 3 · Answer 9 · answered Jul 09 '10 at 07:49

3

You can use the following kill command also.

kill -15 -1

answered Jul 09 '10 at 07:49

thegeek

4,098
1
19
7

score 3 · Answer 10 · answered Jul 09 '10 at 08:10

3

kill -9 -1 
kill -kill 0

answered Jul 09 '10 at 08:10

0fnt

2,001

Andrew · Answer 11 · 2021-04-12T12:25:58.690

0

You could just reboot the machine:

sudo reboot

edited Apr 12 '21 at 12:25

answered Apr 11 '18 at 15:32

Andrew

399

How to kill all processes in Linux

11 Answers11