Cheat Sheet

Linux Signals Cheat Sheet

Most Used Linux Signals

Signal	Value	Description
1	SIGHUP	Hangs up the process
2	SIGINT	Interrupts the process
3	SIGQUIT	Stops the process
9	SIGKILL	Unconditionally terminates the process
15	SIGTERM	Terminates the process if possible
17	SIGSTOP	Unconditionally stops, but doesn't terminate the process
18	SIGTSTP	Stops or pauses the process, but doesn't terminate
19	SIGCONT	Continues a stopped process

All Linux Signals

Signal	Value	Description
1	SIGHUP	Hangs up the process
2	SIGINT	Interrupts the process
3	SIGQUIT	Stops the process
4	SIGILL	Illegal instruction. The ILL signal is sent to a process when it attempts to execute a malformed, unknown, or privileged instruction.
5	SIGTRAP	Trace trap. The TRAP signal is sent to a process when a condition arises that a debugger is tracing — for example, when a particular function  is executed , or when a particular variable changes value.
6	SIGABRT,SIGIOT	Abort process. ABRT is usually sent by the process itself, when it calls the abort() system call to signal an abnormal termination, but it can be sent from any process like any other signal. SIGIOT is a synonym for SIGABRT. (IOT stands for input/output trap, a signal which originated on the PDP-11.)
7	SIGBUS	The BUS signal is sent to a process when it causes a bus error, such as an incorrect memory access alignment or non-existent physical address. In Linux, this signal maps to SIGUNUSED, because memory access errors of this kind are not possible.
8	SIGFPE	Floating point exception. The FPE signal is sent to a process when it executes an erroneous arithmetic operation, such as division by zero.
9	SIGKILL	Forcefully terminate a process. Along with STOP, this is one of two signals which cannot be intercepted, ignored, or handled by the process itself.
10	SIGUSR1	User-defined signal 1. This is one of two signals designated for custom user signal handling.

11	SIGSEGV	The SEGV signal is sent to a process when it makes an invalid virtual memory reference, or segmentation fault, i.e. when it performs a segmentation violation.
12	SIGUSR2	User-defined signal 2. This is one of two signals designated for custom user signal handling.
13	SIGPIPE	The PIPE signal is sent to a process when it attempts to write to a pipe without a process connected to the other end.
14	SIGALRM	The ALRM signal notifies a process that the time interval specified in a call to the alarm() system function has expired.
15	SIGTERM	The TERM signal is sent to a process to request its termination. Unlike the KILL signal, it can be caught and interpreted or ignored by the process. This signal allows the process to perform nice termination releasing resources and saving state if appropriate. It should be noted that SIGINT is nearly identical to SIGTERM.
16	SIGSTKFLT	Stack fault. Maps to SIGUNUSED in Linux.
17	SIGCHLD	The CHLD signal is sent to a process when a child process terminates, is interrupted, or resumes after being interrupted. One common usage of the signal is to instruct the operating system to clean up the resources used by a child process after its termination without an explicit call to the wait system call.
18	SIGCONT	Continue executing after stopped, e.g., by STOP
19	SIGSTOP	The STOP signal instructs the operating system to stop a process for later resumption. This is one of two signals, along with KILL, which cannot be intercepted, ignored, or handled by the process itself.
20	SIGTSTP	The TSTP signal is sent to a process by its controlling terminal to request it to stop temporarily. It is commonly initiated by the user pressing Control-Z. Unlike SIGSTOP, this process can register a signal handler for or ignore the signal.

21	SIGTTIN	The TTIN signal is sent to a process when it attempts to read from the tty while in the background. Typically, this signal can be received only by processes under job control. Daemons do not have controlling terminals and should never receive this signal.
22	SIGTTOU	TTOU signal is sent to a process when it attempts to write from the tty while in the background. The compliment to TTIN.
23	SIGURG	The URG signal is sent to a process when a socket has urgent or out-of-band data available to read.
24	SIGXCPU	The XCPU signal is sent to a process when it has used up the CPU for a duration that exceeds a certain predetermined user-settable value. The arrival of an XCPU signal provides the receiving process a chance to quickly save any intermediate results and to exit gracefully, before it is terminated by the operating system using the SIGKILL signal.
25	SIGXFSZ	The XFSZ signal is sent to a process when it grows a file larger than the maximum allowed size.
26	SIGVTALRM	Virtual alarm clock. May be sent by the alarm() system call. By default, this signal kills the process, but it's intended for use with process-specific signal handling.
27	SIGPROF	Profiling alarm clock. Indicates expiration of a timer that measures CPU time used by the current process ("user" time), and CPU time expended on behalf of the process by the system ("system" time). These times may be used to implement code profiling facilities. By default, this signal terminates the process, but it's intended for use with process-specific signal handling.
28	SIGWINCH	Window change. The WINCH signal is sent to a process when its controlling terminal changes size, for instance if you resize it in your window manager.
29	SIGIO, SIGPOLL	Power failure. The PWR signal is sent to a process when the system detects a power failure. SIGLOST is a synonym for SIGPWR.
30	SIGUNUSED, SIGSYS	Unused signal. This signal is provided for compatibility reasons, for example when porting software from an operating system with different or unsupported signals in Linux. In Linux, SIGSYS is a synonym for SIGUNUSED.

Signals Not Supported by Linux

SIGEMT	The EMT signal is sent to a process when an emulator trap occurs. Unused in Linux.
SIGINFO	The INFO signal is sent to a process when a status request is received from the controlling terminal. Unused in Linux
SIGLOST	The LOST signal is sent to a process when a file lock is lost. Unused in Linux.
SIGSYS	The SYS signal is sent to a process when it passes a bad argument to a system call. Unused in Linux.