Question

I have a script that runs from a newly created shell.
OS is Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 5.4 (Tikanga).
In certain point when the script detects that some application (started by the script) is hanging the script tries to terminate all the procesess it started. I assumed that the correct command for terminating all processes started by current user in current shell is:

pkill /?

The problem is that it kills sshd that is started in parent shell (by init.d) and the putty console disconnects showing error message.

I wonder:

1. How is it possible for specific user in specific shell to terminate process started by other user in parent shell?
2. What would be correct command to terminate all processes started by the script currently running?

I have found some solution where i store all the PIDs and when the script needs to terminate them I run in the loop the following:

[ws@RHDev ~]# pkill $(ps aux | grep $pid | awk '{print $2}') 

However, I am looking for one-liner that simply terminates all the processes started by the current script.

Answer 1

You can filter subprocesses by the current process pid. The ps command can do this using the –ppid parameter.

ps opid --ppid=7051 | tail -n +2 | xargs kill

here tail -n +2 is to strip the ps headers.