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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