murder

murder

Kill processes gracefully using escalating signals.

Usage

murder [OPTIONS] TARGET

Arguments

• TARGET - Process identifier, can be:
  • PID (e.g., 1234)
  • Name (e.g., node)
  • Port (e.g., :8080 or 8080)

Options

• -h, --help - Show help message and exit
• -f, --force - Skip confirmation prompts
• -r, --allow-root - Allow killing root-owned processes

Description

This script terminates processes using an escalating signal strategy:

1. SIGTERM (15) - graceful shutdown, 3s wait
2. SIGINT (2) - interrupt, 3s wait
3. SIGHUP (1) - hangup, 4s wait
4. SIGKILL (9) - force kill

When killing by name or port, the script shows matching processes and asks for confirmation before terminating each one (unless -f is used).

For safety, the script refuses to kill root-owned processes unless the --allow-root flag is explicitly provided.

Prerequisites

• Standard Unix utilities: ps, kill, lsof (for port-based killing)

Examples

Kill a specific process by PID:

murder 1234

Kill all processes matching a name:

murder node

Kill the process listening on a specific port:

murder :8080
# or
murder 8080

Kill all Python processes without confirmation:

murder -f python

Kill a process even if owned by root:

murder -r 1234
# or
murder --allow-root 1234

Kill all node processes including root-owned:

murder --allow-root node

Show help:

murder --help

Exit codes

• 0 - Successfully killed target process(es)
• 1 - Error occurred or no processes found

Signal escalation

The script gives processes time to shut down gracefully:

• SIGTERM allows processes to clean up resources and exit normally
• SIGINT simulates Ctrl+C keyboard interrupt
• SIGHUP signals hangup, useful for daemons
• SIGKILL forcefully terminates if all else fails (cannot be caught or ignored)

Safety features

• Prevents self-termination
• Refuses to kill root-owned processes without explicit --allow-root flag
• Shows process details before killing
• Interactive confirmation for batch operations (name/port)
• Validates inputs before attempting to kill