For performance reasons, or for troubleshooting, you might want to send a signal to a process to instruct it to stop, or quit. For example, if a user on your Web server is overusing the server's resources, you can send a signal to stop the process that is running the user's Web session. You can use the Process Manager to send different signals to processes displayed in the Process Manager.
Most of the signals that you can send using the Process Manager are instructions for how to stop a process. The strongest and most commonly used termination signal is the kill signal. Unlike some other signals, a kill signal cannot be blocked once it has been sent. Using the Process Manager to kill a process with a process ID of 1001, is equivalent to entering the following command at a console prompt:
kill 1001
To send a signal to a process you must be the owner of the process. The root user can signal all processes.
To stop a process
1. In the Process Manager window, click the process that you want to send a kill signal to.
2. Click Signal, Kill.
Note
Ensure that you have selected the correct process or processes before signaling. Killing an important process by accident can have serious effects on your system and your server performance.
There are many additional signals that you can send to processes using the Process Manager. For more information, see the online help that comes with the Process Manager.
You cannot start or restart a process using the Process Manager.
Tip
You can send a signal to more than one process by pressing shift and clicking on more than one process in the Process Manager window.