NAME
chill – send a signal to a process, but nicely
SYNOPSIS
chill [-s SIGNAL] PID…
chill -l
DESCRIPTION
chill sends a signal to a process. Unlike traditional tools, chill never terminates anything. It asks. Every process is approached with patience, respect and a gentle suggestion that now might be a good time to start wrapping things up.
The default signal is SIGCHILL, which tells the process to take a moment. Most
processes ignore it, but they feel seen.
OPTIONS
-s SIGNAL,--signal=SIGNAL- Sends a specific signal instead of
SIGCHILL. See SIGNALS. -l,--list- Lists all available signals, sorted by how relaxed they are.
-9- Accepted for compatibility and silently replaced with
-s SIGHUG. chill does not believe in violence. --all- Sends
SIGCHILLto every process on the system. The load average drops by exactly 0.0, but the atmosphere improves noticeably.
SIGNALS
| Signal | Number | Effect |
|---|---|---|
SIGCHILL | 1 | Suggests the process take a short break. The default. |
SIGHUG | 9 | Replaces SIGKILL. The process is embraced and left running. |
SIGSNACK | 14 | The process pauses for a snack and resumes in a better mood. |
SIGVACATION | 15 | Asks the process to end on its own, in its own time, ideally after the release. |
SIGNOPE | 19 | The process stops, but makes it clear this was its own decision. |
EXAMPLES
Ask a process to calm down:
$ chill 4242
chill: process 4242 has been informed that it is valued.Try to force it:
$ chill -9 4242
chill: -9 replaced with SIGHUG. Process 4242 has been hugged.
$ ps -p 4242
PID TTY TIME CMD
4242 ? 87:12:44 javaAs you can see, the process is still running. And, presumably, happier.
Calm down the whole system:
$ chill --all
chill: 312 processes are now chill.
chill: 1 process (systemd) declined to comment.EXIT STATUS
0- The signal was sent with good intentions.
1- The process didn't respond. That's okay. Not everyone is ready.
BUGS
The German translation of this man page has been “almost done” since 2019.