MURDER(1)			 User Commands			     MURDER(1)

NAME
       murder - smart Linux process killer

       Inspired by Evan Hahn's murder script

SYNOPSIS
       murder [-hfqoncr] PID|NAME|:PORT

OPTIONS
       -h, --help
	      Show help message

       -f, --force
	      Kill without confirmation

       -q, --quiet
	      Quiet mode (minimal output)

       -o, --one
	      Kill only the specified process, not the entire tree

       -c, --name-only
	      Search by process name only (not full command line)

       -n, --dry-run
	      Show what would be killed without actually killing

       -r, --reverse
	      Kill parent processes before children
	      Default is children first (usually safer)

ARGUMENTS
       PID
	      Process ID to kill (e.g., 1234)

       NAME
	      Process name to kill (e.g., python, emacs, firefox)

       :PORT
	      Port number to kill process on (e.g., :3000)

EXAMPLES
       murder 1234
	      Kill process with PID 1234

       murder -f ruby
	      Kill all ruby processes without asking

       murder -q :3000
	      Kill process on port 3000 quietly

       murder -fq python
	      Kill python processes without asking and quietly

       murder -nf firefox
	      Show what would be killed (search by full command)

       murder -nfc firefox
	      Show what would be killed (search by name only)

       murder -nfq firefox
	      Show what would be killed with minimal output

NOTES
   Signal escalation
       murder uses graduated signals with timeouts:

       SIGTERM (15)
	      wait 3 seconds

       SIGINT  (2)
	      wait 3 seconds

       SIGHUP  (1)
	      wait 4 seconds

       SIGKILL (9)
	      no wait

       murder verifies the process exists and hasn't been replaced (PID reuse)
       both before and after each signal. If the process dies during
       escalation, it stops sending further signals

   Process tree
       By default, murder kills the entire process tree. It finds all
       descendants by parsing /proc/*/stat and kills them in order: children
       first

       Use -r to change order
       Use -o to kill only the specified process

   Search behavior
       PID   mode
	      Direct kill by process ID

       NAME  mode
	      Searches ps -eo command (or ps -eo comm with -c) Matches
	      substring, excludes itself (won't kill murder process)

       :PORT mode
	      Uses ss first, falls back to lsof

REQUIREMENTS
       Perl 5.005 or higher
	      Usually pre-installed on any Linux system

       ps
	      Standard Unix tool (pre-installed)

       lsof or ss
	      Optional, required only for port killing mode (:PORT)

SEE ALSO
       kill(1), pkill(1), lsof(8), ss(8)

murder				 February 2026			     MURDER(1)