murder.1

.TH MURDER 1 "February 2026" "murder" "User Commands"
.SH NAME
\fBmurder\fR \- smart Linux process killer

Inspired by Evan Hahn's murder script
.SH SYNOPSIS
murder [\-hfqoncr] PID|NAME|:PORT
.SH OPTIONS
.TP
\fB\-h, \-\-help\fR
.br
Show help message
.TP
\fB\-f, \-\-force\fR
.br
Kill without confirmation
.TP
\fB\-q, \-\-quiet\fR
.br
Quiet mode (minimal output)
.TP
\fB\-o, \-\-one\fR
.br
Kill only the specified process, not the entire tree
.TP
\fB\-c, \-\-name\-only\fR
.br
Search by process name only (not full command line)
.TP
\fB\-n, \-\-dry\-run\fR
.br
Show what would be killed without actually killing
.TP
\fB\-r, \-\-reverse\fR
.br
Kill parent processes before children
.br
.br
Default is children first (usually safer)
.SH ARGUMENTS
.TP
\fBPID\fR
.br
Process ID to kill (e.g., 1234)
.TP
\fBNAME\fR
.br
Process name to kill (e.g., python, emacs, firefox)
.TP
\fB:PORT\fR
.br
Port number to kill process on (e.g., :3000)
.SH EXAMPLES
.TP
\fBmurder 1234\fR
.br
Kill process with PID 1234
.TP
\fBmurder \-f ruby\fR
.br
Kill all ruby processes without asking
.TP
\fBmurder \-q :3000\fR
.br
Kill process on port 3000 quietly
.TP
\fBmurder \-fq python\fR
.br
Kill python processes without asking and quietly
.TP
\fBmurder \-nf firefox\fR
.br
Show what would be killed (search by full command)
.TP
\fBmurder \-nfc firefox\fR
.br
Show what would be killed (search by name only)
.TP
\fBmurder \-nfq firefox\fR
.br
Show what would be killed with minimal output
.SH NOTES
.SS Signal escalation
\fBmurder\fR uses graduated signals with timeouts:
.TP
\fBSIGTERM (15)\fR
.br
wait 3 seconds
.TP
\fBSIGINT  (2)\fR
.br
wait 3 seconds
.TP
\fBSIGHUP  (1)\fR
.br
wait 4 seconds
.TP
\fBSIGKILL (9)\fR
.br
no wait
.P
\fBmurder\fR 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
.SS Process tree
By default, \fBmurder\fR kills the entire process tree. It finds all descendants by parsing \fI/proc/*/stat\fR and kills them in order: children first

Use \fB\-r\fR to change order
.br
Use \fB\-o\fR to kill only the specified process
.SS Search behavior
.TP
\fBPID   mode\fR
.br
Direct kill by process ID
.TP
\fBNAME  mode\fR
.br
Searches \fBps -eo command\fR (or \fBps -eo comm\fR with \fB\-c\fR)
Matches substring, excludes itself (won't kill murder process)
.TP
\fB:PORT mode\fR
.br
Uses \fBss\fR first, falls back to \fBlsof\fR
.SH REQUIREMENTS
.TP
\fBPerl 5.005 or higher\fR
.br
Usually pre-installed on any Linux system
.TP
\fBps\fR
.br
Standard Unix tool (pre-installed)
.TP
\fBlsof\fR or \fBss\fR
.br
Optional, required only for port killing mode (:PORT)
.SH SEE ALSO
kill(1), pkill(1), lsof(8), ss(8)