HP-UX Reference (11i v2 07/12) - 2 System Calls (vol 5)

k
kill(2) kill(2)
NAME
kill(), raise() - send a signal to a process or a group of processes
SYNOPSIS
#include <signal.h>
int kill(pid_t pid, int sig);
int raise(int sig);
DESCRIPTION
The kill() system call sends a signal to a process or a group of processes, as specified by pid. The signal
to be sent is specified by sig and is either one from the list given in signal(2), or
0.
The
raise() system call sends a signal to the executing program. The signal to be sent is specified by sig
and is either one from the list given in signal(2), or
0.
If sig is
0 (the null signal), error checking is performed but no signal is actually sent. This can be used to
check the validity of pid.
The real or effective user ID of the sending process must match the real or saved user ID of the receiving
process unless the sending process has appropriate privileges.
As a single special case, the continue signal SIGCONT can be sent to any process that is a member of the
same session as the sending process.
The value KILL_ALL_OTHERS
is defined in the file <sys/signal.h> and is guaranteed not to be the
ID of any process in the system or the negation of the ID of any process in the system.
If pid is greater than zero and not equal to
KILL_ALL_OTHERS
, sig is sent to the process whose process
ID is equal to pid. pid can equal
1 unless sig is SIGKILL or SIGSTOP.
If pid is
0, sig is sent to all processes excluding special system processes whose process group ID is equal to
the process group ID of the sender.
If pid is -1 and the sending process does not have the appropriate privileges, sig is sent to all processes
excluding special system processes whose real or saved user ID is equal to the real or effective user ID of
the sender.
If pid is
-1 and the effective user ID of the sender is a user who has appropriate privileges, sig is sent to all
processes excluding special system processes.
If pid is
KILL_ALL_OTHERS
, kill() behaves much as when pid is equal to -1, except that sig is not
sent to the calling process.
If pid is negative but not
-1 or KILL_ALL_OTHERS
, sig is sent to all processes (excluding special system
processes) whose process group ID is equal to the absolute value of pid, and whose real and/or effective user
ID meets the constraints described above for matching user IDs.
Security Restrictions
Some or all of the actions associated with this system call are subject to compartmental restrictions. See
compartments(5) for more information about compartmentalization on systems that support that feature.
Compartmental restrictions can be overridden if the process possesses the
PRIV_COMMALLOWED
privilege
(COMMALLOWED). Processes owned by the superuser may not have this privilege. Processes owned by
any user may have this privilege, depending on system configuration.
Some or all of the actions associated with this system call require the
PRIV_OWNER (OWNER) and/or the
PRIV_REBOOT (REBOOT) privileges. Processes owned by the superuser will have these privileges.
Processes owned by other users may have privilege(s), depending on system configuration. See
privileges(5) for more information about privileged access on systems that support fine-grained privileges.
RETURN VALUE
Upon successful completion, a value of 0 is returned. Otherwise, a value of -1 is returned and errno is
set to indicate the error.
ERRORS
If kill() fails, no signal is sent. errno is set to one of the following values.
[EINVAL] sig is neither a valid signal number nor zero.
HP-UX 11i Version 2: December 2007 Update − 1 − Hewlett-Packard Company 157