Killing a Process Using Java

Killing a process using Java

If you start the process from with in your Java application (ex. by calling Runtime.exec() or ProcessBuilder.start()) then you have a valid Process reference to it, and you can invoke the destroy() method in Process class to kill that particular process.

But be aware that if the process that you invoke creates new sub-processes, those may not be terminated (see https://bugs.openjdk.org/browse/JDK-4770092).

On the other hand, if you want to kill external processes (which you did not spawn from your Java app), then one thing you can do is to call O/S utilities which allow you to do that. For example, you can try a Runtime.exec() on kill command under Unix / Linux and check for return values to ensure that the application was killed or not (0 means success, -1 means error). But that of course will make your application platform dependent.

The right way to kill a process in Java

If the process you want to kill has been started by your application

Then you probably have a reference to it (ProcessBuilder.start() or Runtime.exec() both return a reference). In this case, you can simply call p.destroy(). I think this is the cleanest way (but be careful: sub-processes started by p may stay alive, check Process.destroy does not kill multiple child processes for more info).

The destroyForcibly should only be used if destroy() failed after a certain timeout. In a nutshell

1. terminate process with destroy()
2. allow process to exit gracefully with reasonable timeout
3. kill it with destroyForcibly() if process is still alive

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If the process you want to kill is external

Then you don't have much choice: you need to pass through the OS API (Runtime.exec). On Windows, the program to call will be taskkill.exe, while on Mac and Linux you can try kill.

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Have a look at Support for Process.destroyForcibly() and .isAlive() from Java 8 and Killing a process using Java and Code a Simple Java App to Kill Any Process After a Specified Time for more info.

How to close running process using java?

Runtime.exec(...) returns Process object which consists following methods

• destroy()
• exitValue()
• getErrorStream()
• getInputStream()
• getOutputStream()
• waitFor()

you can call destroy() which kills the subprocess. The subprocess represented by this Process object is forcibly terminated.
or you can kill by passing taskkill /PID <process id> in Runtime.exec(...) or kill -9 <process id>

How can I kill a process from a Java application, if I know the PID of this process? I am looking for a cross-platfrom solution

Since Java 9 there's ProcessHandle which allows interaction with all processes on a system (constrained by system permissions of course).

Specifically ProcessHandle.of(knownPid) will return the ProcessHandle for a given PID (technically an Optional which may be empty if no process was found) and destroy or destroyForcibly will attempt to kill the process.

I.e.

long pid = getThePidViaSomeWay();
Optional<ProcessHandle> maybePh = ProcessHandle.of(pid);
ProcessHandle ph = maybePh.orElseThrow(); // replace with  your preferred way to handle no process being found.
ph.destroy(); //or
ph.destroyForcibly(); // if you want to be more "forcible" about it

How to find and kill running Win-Processes from within Java?

You can use command line windows tools tasklist and taskkill and call them from Java using Runtime.exec().

Kill a java process using its Name and not PID

Finally found a easy solution here

jps - Java Virtual Machine Process Status Tool , can be used for killing a java process with its name.

for /f "tokens=1" %i in ('C:\java\jdk-7u45-windows-x64\bin\jps -m ^| find "DummyBroker"') do ( taskkill /F /PID %i )

We can add above in batch file and simply call the batch file from java program.

how to kill a process in java after completion of a job in java

process.destroy()

But it won't have control over the process started from server.bat those are separately started

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