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Sometimes, processes ignore the SIGINT signal sent by Ctrl-C in Bash. For instance, man and vi. Assuming you don't want to google or read the manual on how to exit the running process, is there any key sequence that will always work (without leaving the terminal)?

8 Answers 8

202

Send the SIGQUIT signal with Ctrl+\.

.. $ sleep 10
^\Quit

→ This is equivalent to kill -3 pid. Programs run in user-space don't ignore sigquit.

There is also a set of Magic SysRq keyboard shortcuts. One of the more interesting ones is this: Alt+SysRq+k. It kills every process on the current virtual console. If one of your ttys is completely and utterly broken, this can be used to go back. On the tty running X.org, it can be used to kill X without mercy.

The SysRq key is, on most keyboards, the same as the Print Key. On my notebook, it can be invoked using the Fn key; I.e. Alt→Fn→Print→k in that order.

Here are some of the basic process management shortcuts:

  • Ctrl+Z: pause a process (plus bg to resume in the background, fg to raise to foreground)
  • Ctrl+C: politely ask the process to shut down now
  • Ctrl+\: mercilessly kill the process that is currently in the foreground
  • Alt+SysRq+s: Write data to disk (always do this before killing anything important)
  • Alt+SysRq+s, k: mercilessly kill all current processes on a given virtual console
  • Alt+SysRq+s, b: mercilessly reboot without unmounting,
  • Alt+SysRq+r, e, i, s, u, b: Safely reboot even if the system is utterly broken,

Note: Ctrl+Z, in contrast to Ctrl+C and Ctrl+\, also works for man, vi, less, and the like.

When in doubt, the follwing procedure will almost always work:

~$ sleep 10
^Z
[5]+  Stopped              sleep 10
~$ ps
  PID TTY          TIME CMD
 4804 pts/0    00:00:00 bash
 6207 pts/0    00:00:00 sleep
 6208 pts/0    00:00:00 ps
~$ kill -9 6207
[5]+  Killed                  sleep 10
~$ 

^Z of course indicates that Ctrl+Z has been pressed.


For a more in-depth look at Shells and Terminals, also see my answers on:

15
  • 3
    Works for "sleep 10" but still doesn't work for "man" or "vi". Obviously "kill -9 pid" does work at killing both processes. Am I missing something? Nov 20, 2010 at 12:14
  • 3
    Ctrl+Z works with things like less, man, vi and so on. You can then kill them by doing a ps to see their process id and kill them using kill pid or, if you don't care about other instances of the program, killall vi. In any case, Ctrl-Z always seems to work. Nov 20, 2010 at 12:33
  • 5
    You can also do kill %% to kill the last job and kill %5 where 5 is the job number shown in jobs. Nov 20, 2010 at 13:43
  • 4
    Ctrl-\ sends a SIGQUIT, not a SIGKILL. There are some important differences between SIGQUIT and SIGKILL. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIGQUIT
    – Juliano
    Nov 20, 2010 at 16:44
  • 4
    How do I press Ctrl+\ when there is no \ key in my keyboard layout?
    – Forivin
    Jan 19, 2017 at 9:49
18

You can try Ctrl+\

3
  • 2
    Doesn't work with either man or vi.
    – Hippo
    Nov 20, 2010 at 18:41
  • 1
    worked ubuntu 16.04
    – kRazzy R
    Feb 13, 2018 at 22:24
  • I had to hit Ctrl+\ twice before it did anything. However, it core dumped.
    – joatd
    Oct 28, 2022 at 11:48
11

Sometimes the CTRL+C is getting sent to the wrong program or input channel. This is especially common with editors such as vi, with commands with piped output, complex bash commands involving loops, etc.

A simple, quick solution is to suspend the job CTRL+Z and then kill it by job number: kill %1 or kill -9 %1, etc.

11
  • Try one of these:

    Ctrl+4

    Ctrl+\


  • Or:

    Ctrl+Z and then run:

    kill %1

Where %1 is the number of job which was returned when you pressed Control-Z. Add -9 to force the kill.


When you're in text console, you could also try: Ctrl-SysRq. The kernel should kill the process.

Or SysRq-k, kill all processes on the current virtual console (can kill X and svgalib programs as well).

Note: When magic SysRq keys are used to kill a frozen graphical program, the program has no chance to restore text mode. This can make everything unreadable.

See: Magic SysRq key and its command combinations.

0
4

It's possible, that you changed the shortcut of copy from:

CTRL+SHIFT+C

To

CTRL+C

That way, when you try to kill a process, the CTRL+C doesn't work.

Try to replace the copy shortcut to CTRL+SHIFT+C.

5
  • 2
    Changing copy shortcut is irrelevant to force a process to be terminated!
    – SuB
    Nov 20, 2016 at 20:13
  • Can you please expand on your answer a little? Step by step would be ideal, primarily so the OP can follow along with your suggestion. :) Nov 20, 2016 at 21:17
  • 1
    This actually helped me. I'm used to CTRL+C on MacOS, and didn't realise the Ubuntu command was CTRL+SHIFT+C Feb 14, 2019 at 16:10
  • I never realized that is what I did! Thanks. CTRL+SHIFT+C works
    – TetraDev
    Jan 29, 2021 at 2:49
  • This exactly what I did ><! Thank you!
    – Jet Blue
    May 20, 2021 at 22:06
3

To quit from man, use q To leave vi use :q

1

Open Terminal → Preferences → Shortcuts and search if by mistake you have replaced any key with Ctrl+C.

-1

Try Ctrl+Alt+Backspace

If you are using ubuntu 10.04 you wanna enable this key to work.

To enable Control-Alt-Backspace

Goto System-->Preferences-->Keyboard

Select the Layouts tab and click on the Layout Options.

Select Key sequence to kill the X server and enable Control + Alt +Backspace.

Note:

Pressing Ctrl-Alt-Backspace will restart your X server.

1
  • Edited the question to make it clear I want to kill the process from within the terminal. Nov 20, 2010 at 12:04

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