2 .\" (The preceding line is a note to broken versions of man to tell
3 .\" them to pre-process this man page with tbl)
4 .\" Man page for skill and snice.
5 .\" Licensed under version 2 of the GNU General Public License.
6 .\" Written by Albert Cahalan, converted to a man page by
9 .TH SKILL 1 "March 12, 1999" "Linux" "Linux User's Manual"
11 skill, snice \- send a signal or report process status
15 skill [signal to send] [options] process selection criteria
16 snice [new priority] [options] process selection criteria
20 These tools are probably obsolete and unportable. The command
21 syntax is poorly defined. Consider using the killall, pkill,
22 and pgrep commands instead.
24 The default signal for skill is TERM. Use -l or -L to list available signals.
25 Particularly useful signals include HUP, INT, KILL, STOP, CONT, and 0.
26 Alternate signals may be specified in three ways: -9 -SIGKILL -KILL.
28 The default priority for snice is +4. (snice +4 ...)
29 Priority numbers range from +20 (slowest) to -20 (fastest).
30 Negative priority numbers are restricted to administrative users.
35 -f fast mode This is not currently useful.
37 You will be asked to approve each action.
40 Display information about selected processes.
42 -w warnings enabled This is not currently useful.
43 -n no action This only displays the process ID.
44 -V show version Displays version of program.
47 .SH "PROCESS SELECTION OPTIONS"
48 Selection criteria can be: terminal, user, pid, command.
49 The options below may be used to ensure correct interpretation.
50 Do not blame Albert for this interesting interface.
53 -t The next argument is a terminal (tty or pty).
54 -u The next argument is a username.
55 -p The next argument is a process ID number.
56 -c The next argument is a command name.
60 The signals listed below may be available for use with skill.
61 When known, numbers and default behavior are shown.
65 Name Num Action Description
67 0 0 n/a exit code indicates if a signal may be sent
71 KILL 9 exit this signal may not be blocked
79 STKFLT exit may not be implemented
80 PWR ignore may exit on some systems
84 TSTP stop may interact with the shell
85 TTIN stop may interact with the shell
86 TTOU stop may interact with the shell
87 STOP stop this signal may not be blocked
88 CONT restart continue if stopped, otherwise ignore
95 SYS core may not be implemented
96 EMT core may not be implemented
97 BUS core core dump may fail
98 XCPU core core dump may fail
99 XFSZ core core dump may fail
108 snice seti crack +7 Slow down seti and crack
109 skill -KILL -v /dev/pts/* Kill users on new-style PTY devices
110 skill -STOP viro lm davem Stop 3 users
111 snice -17 root bash Give priority to root's shell
115 killall(1) pkill(1) kill(1) renice(1) nice(1) signal(7) kill(2)
121 Albert Cahalan <albert@users.sf.net> wrote skill and snice in 1999 as a
122 replacement for a non-free version, and is the current maintainer of the
123 procps collection. Please send bug reports to <procps-feedback@lists.sf.net>.