How to kill multiple processes from terminal with single line

You might encounter situations where you need to kill group of processes, such as when google-chrome is running. Chrome spawns multiple processes and you might want to shut it down from terminal.

[rozaydin@RO ~]$ ps -e | grep chrome
 5017 ?        00:00:01 chrome
 5027 ?        00:00:00 chrome-sandbox
 5028 ?        00:00:00 chrome
 5033 ?        00:00:00 chrome-sandbox
 5036 ?        00:00:00 chrome
 5055 ?        00:00:00 chrome
 5083 ?        00:00:00 chrome
 5091 ?        00:00:00 chrome
 5107 ?        00:00:00 chrome
 5111 ?        00:00:00 chrome
 5115 ?        00:00:00 chrome
 5123 ?        00:00:00 chrome
 5131 ?        00:00:00 chrome
 5139 ?        00:00:00 chrome
 5142 ?        00:00:00 chrome
 5154 ?        00:00:00 chrome
 5160 ?        00:00:00 chrome
[rozaydin@RO ~]$
 

Killing these processes  one by one is a tedious task instead you can use below command the kill them with one single line. (Bird massacre with single stone)


ps -e | grep <processname> | awk '{system("kill -9 "$1)}'


[rozaydin@RO ~]$ ps -e | grep chrome | awk '{system("kill -9 "$1)}'
sh: line 0: kill: (5033) - No such process
sh: line 0: kill: (5036) - No such process
sh: line 0: kill: (5055) - No such process
sh: line 0: kill: (5083) - No such process
sh: line 0: kill: (5107) - No such process
sh: line 0: kill: (5111) - No such process
sh: line 0: kill: (5115) - No such process
sh: line 0: kill: (5123) - No such process
sh: line 0: kill: (5131) - No such process
sh: line 0: kill: (5139) - No such process
sh: line 0: kill: (5142) - No such process
sh: line 0: kill: (5154) - No such process
sh: line 0: kill: (5160) - No such process
[rozaydin@RO ~]$
[rozaydin@RO ~]$ ps -e | grep chrome
[rozaydin@RO ~]$