How to Kill SIGHUP

The Linux operating system normally terminates, or kills, a task by sending it a SIGHUP command. This stands for "Signal Hangup" and terminates a process on the system. If a programmer has not created a program restart command, or if you are having difficulties with an unresponsive program and wish to restart it, sending it a SIGHUP command will terminate the program and cause it to automatically restart.

Instructions

1. Log into your system using the user account currently running the process you'd like to send a SIGHUP command to, or the root account.

2. Open a new terminal window. This process differs greatly between Linux distributions so consult your manual if you are uncertain.

3. Type "ps -aux" in the terminal to obtain a list of processes. If you know part of the process name, type "ps -aux | grep <partialname>" where "<partialname>" is part of the program's name. This will filter the results to provide a more readable output.

4. Locate the "PID" value for the process, such as "1219" listed in the process column.

5. Type "kill -HUP <PID>" and replace "<PID>" with the PID value obtained from the "ps" command. This will cause the program to restart.

References

• Comptechdoc.org: Linux Process Control