Re: Re: Re: Zombie Hunter (666th post) killall might be dangerous

[eduardo]

On this particular big box:HP-UX frank B.11.00 U 9000/800 75635 unlimited-user license Which as you see is HP-UX 11, killall is totally different that the linux killall. As we see from the manpage:

 NAME
      killall - kill all active processes

 SYNOPSIS
      /usr/sbin/killall [signal]

 DESCRIPTION
      killall is a procedure used by /usr/sbin/shutdown to kill all ac
+tive
      processes not directly related to the shutdown procedure.

      killall is chiefly used to terminate all processes with open fil
+es so
      that the mounted file systems are no longer busy and can be unmo
+unted.
      killall sends the specified signal to all user processes in the
      system, with the following exceptions:

           the init process;

           all processes (including background processes) associated w
+ith
           the terminal from which killall was invoked;

           any ps -ef process, if owned by root;

           any sed -e process, if owned by root;

           any shutdown process;

           any killall process;

           any /sbin/rc process.

      killall obtains its process information from ps, and therefore m
+ay not
      be able to perfectly identify which processes to signal (see ps(
+1)).

      If no signal is specified, a default of 9 (kill) is used.

      killall is invoked automatically by shutdown The use of shutdown
+ is
      recommended over using killall by itself (see shutdown(1M)).

 FILES
      /usr/sbin/shutdown

 SEE ALSO
      fuser(1M), kill(1), ps(1), shutdown(1M), signal(5).

 STANDARDS CONFORMANCE
      killall: SVID2, SVID3

 Hewlett-Packard Company            - 1 -  HP-UX Release 11.00: Octobe
+r 1997

So, what it does is basically destroys all stubborn running processes still left during a system shutdown. Certainly not the same thing as a Linux killall, which really is just (as far as I can tell) a fancy signal sending multiplexer.

On a marginally related note, be careful and stingy with your kill -9 (and killall's as well)... lest you find yourself recepient of merlyn's Useless use of kill award :)