Suggestion: rename "killall" to "fkill", but wait five years to phase the new name in

jhell jhell at DataIX.net
Tue Dec 22 19:18:08 UTC 2009


On Tue, 22 Dec 2009 01:31, jasonspiro4@ wrote:
> Dear Craig, thanks for maintaining the "killall" command on Linux.
> Dear hackers, thanks for maintaining it on FreeBSD.
>
> Naming it the same as System V killall, which just kills all
> processes, can wreak havoc.  When someone types a standard Linux
> killall command line as root on a Solaris or HP-UX server, System V
> killall runs and kills all processes.
>
> It might be good if you'd rename it to something else.  Not "akill"
> (All Kill):  it looks like IRIX probably ships with something called
> akill already, so this would be confusing.  Maybe "fkill" (Friendly
> Kill).
>
> You could do this in phases:  for the first five years,
> /usr/bin/killall could print a warning onscreen, then function as
> usual.  After five years, it could cease to function unless you call
> it as "fkill".
>
> Craig, and hackers, are you both willing to do this?
>
> -Jason
>

This is what shell aliases are for and what a system admins job consist 
of. If it gives you that much of a problem just alias it out for your self 
in your .cshrc .shrc .bashrc .bash_profile etc. If you want to change 
something on a more per user basis figure out how to setup a skeleton 
directory so when a new user is created they get all the files from that 
skel copied into there home. If it is more of a system-wide change then 
the shell files in /etc will probably be of more use.

PS: Applying your changes to a mailing list are not const.

-- 

  Tue Dec 22 14:09:40 2009

  jhell


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