Process Signal Planner & Reference

Understand common POSIX signals and preview cautious stop, reload, notification, or escalation commands.

Never run a preview blindly. PIDs and names can be reused between inspection and signaling. Verify the command immediately before use. Signals may cause data loss, downtime, or affect processes owned by other users. This page never executes commands.

Plan a sequence

Target identifier

PID

Intent

Wait before escalation (seconds)

Scope Entire process group (PID only)

Include forceful KILL fallback

Command preview

Enter and verify a target to generate a preview.

Process groups: a negative PID signals every process in that group. Confirm the PGID with ps; do not assume it equals the PID.

SIGKILL is last resort. It cannot be caught and prevents cleanup, transaction completion, lock removal, and buffer flushing.

Signal reference

Search signals

Signal	Typical meaning	Planning note	Portability

Signal numbers are intentionally omitted: numbers vary across systems except where a platform documents them. Prefer names. Semantics beyond the POSIX default can be application-specific.