Kill one or more running containers
docker container kill, docker kill
| Name | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
-s, --signal | string | Signal to send to the container |
The docker kill subcommand kills one or more containers. The main process inside the container is sent SIGKILL signal (default), or the signal that is specified with the --signal option. You can reference a container by its ID, ID-prefix, or name.
The --signal flag sets the system call signal that is sent to the container. This signal can be a signal name in the format SIG<NAME>, for instance SIGINT, or an unsigned number that matches a position in the kernel's syscall table, for instance 2.
While the default (SIGKILL) signal will terminate the container, the signal set through --signal may be non-terminal, depending on the container's main process. For example, the SIGHUP signal in most cases will be non-terminal, and the container will continue running after receiving the signal.
[!NOTE]
ENTRYPOINTandCMDin the shell form run as a child process of/bin/sh -c, which does not pass signals. This means that the executable is not the container’s PID 1 and does not receive Unix signals.
The following example sends the default SIGKILL signal to the container named my_container:
$ docker kill my_container
The following example sends a SIGHUP signal to the container named my_container:
$ docker kill --signal=SIGHUP my_container
You can specify a custom signal either by name, or number. The SIG prefix is optional, so the following examples are equivalent:
$ docker kill --signal=SIGHUP my_container $ docker kill --signal=HUP my_container $ docker kill --signal=1 my_container
Refer to the signal(7) man-page for a list of standard Linux signals.