Aborting Execution of jobs in Linux / Unix

To terminate a program from a character-based display, press the interrupt key (CONTROL-C or sometimes DELETE or DEL). When you press this key, the Linux operating system sends a terminal interrupt signal both to the program you are running and to the shell. Exactly what effect this signal has depends on the program. Some programs stop execution immediately; others ignore the signal. Some programs take other actions. When it receives a terminal interrupt signal, the shell displays a prompt and waits for another command.

If these methods do not terminate the program, try stopping the program with the suspend key (typically CONTROL-Z), giving the jobs command to verify the job number of the program, and using kill to abort the program. The job number is the number within the brackets at the left end of the line that jobs displays ([1]). The kill command sends a signal to the job specified as its argument. You must precede the job number with a percent sign (%1):

$ bigjob
^Z
[1]+  Stopped                 bigjob

$ jobs
[1]+  Stopped                 bigjob

$ kill %1
[1]+  Stopped                 bigjob

$ RETURN
[1]+  Killed                  bigjob

By default kill sends a software termination signal (–TERM). When this signal does not work, try using a kill (–KILL) signal:

$ kill -KILL %1

A running program cannot ignore a kill signal—it is sure to abort the program. The kill command returns a prompt; press RETURN again to see the confirmation message.