On Linux killall lets you killall all processes matching a name.
On Solaris killall kills all processes.
To make matters worse, I used the command on a sever with a hung console -- so it didn't apply immediately, but later in the middle of the day the console got unhung and the main database server went down.
Explaining that this was an earnest error and not something malicious to the PHBs was somewhat ... delicate. "So why did you kill all the processes?" "Because I didn't expect it to do that." "But the command name is kill all?" ...
It's used in the Solaris init scripts for shutdown, shortly before the system tries to unmount all mounted disk volumes.
I made the same mistake nullc made once, as I was more accustomed to linux than solaris. That was after hours and the effect was immediate, but it was still a pretty jarring and memorable moment.
I oversaw a Solaris machine for a very short period, and never got any reason to use it. But if you can change the signal, sending SIGHUP into everything looks like reasonable thing to do.
Still, it's not something common enough to deserve it's own program.
On Solaris killall kills all processes.
To make matters worse, I used the command on a sever with a hung console -- so it didn't apply immediately, but later in the middle of the day the console got unhung and the main database server went down.
Explaining that this was an earnest error and not something malicious to the PHBs was somewhat ... delicate. "So why did you kill all the processes?" "Because I didn't expect it to do that." "But the command name is kill all?" ...