kill command usage

Howto: Linux kill and logout users

by Vivek Gite · 18 comments

Yet another newbie question that suggests people love to kill and show their power to rest of the world ;)

There is a package called procps. It includes various useful (read as nifty) utilities. One of such utility is skill which is responsible to send a signal to users and process such as:

* Halt user terminal
* Kill user and logout

Also note that these are utilities to browse the /proc filesystem, which is not a real file system but a way for the kernel to provide information about the status of entries in its process table.
Task: How to halt/stop user called didi

Type the skill command as follows:
# skill -STOP -u didi

You muse be root to stop other users.
Task: How to resume already halted user called didi

Send CONT single to user didi, type the following command:
# skill -CONT -u didi
Task: How to kill and logout user called didi

You can send KILL single, type the following command:
# skill -KILL -u didi
Task: Kill and logout all users

The ultimate command to kill and logout all users, type the following command:
# skill -KILL -v /dev/pts/*

Please note that send users warning message or logout notice using wall command to avoid data loss.

Reference from
http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/howto-linux-kill-and-logout-users.html