Delete

Tool Name: processes/delete

Sends ONE signal to ONE process by PID (kill(2)); the default SIGTERM asks the process to exit. Mutating and not idempotent: it returns as soon as the signal is delivered and does not check that the process exited, and signalling a PID that is gone fails with no such process. Allowed signal values: SIGTERM, SIGKILL, SIGHUP, SIGINT, SIGQUIT, SIGUSR1, SIGUSR2, SIGSTOP, SIGCONT, SIGABRT (SIG prefix optional, case-insensitive, numbers rejected), so it can also pause (SIGSTOP) and resume (SIGCONT). Refuses PID 1 and the mcpd daemon itself. Another user's process fails with not permitted unless privileged: true (needs a grant). Find the PID first with processes/list or processes/top. To stop a managed service use services/manage (systemd may restart a killed one), for a container docker/manage. Returns one text line, Successfully sent signal SIGTERM to process N; output_format has no effect.

Arguments

Argument	Type	Required	Description
`pid`	integer	yes	PID to signal (positive integer; PID 1 and mcpd itself are refused)
`output_format`	string	no	Ignored - the reply is always text
`privileged`	boolean	no	Run as root to signal other users' processes. Needs a grant for this tool in mcp-sudo.yaml, otherwise refused
`signal`	string	no	SIGTERM (default), SIGKILL, SIGHUP, SIGINT, SIGQUIT, SIGUSR1, SIGUSR2, SIGSTOP, SIGCONT or SIGABRT; SIG prefix optional, case-insensitive

Example

Every example below shows the equivalent linuxctl command and the raw MCP JSON-RPC call it resolves to. The raw call always follows the same two-step pattern (see MCP API overview for the full explanation): open an SSE stream to get a one-time POST endpoint, then POST the JSON-RPC request there - the result streams back on the SSE connection.

linuxctl

linuxctl delete processes 1234 --signal SIGTERM

Output (not executed here - hypothetical, matches the tool's source code):

Successfully sent signal SIGTERM to process 1234

curl (raw MCP JSON-RPC)

# 1. Open the SSE stream (in the background) and capture the one-time POST endpoint
curl -N -s --cacert mcpd.crt -H "Authorization: Bearer $MCP_TOKEN" https://localhost:9091/sse &
# server sends: event: endpoint / data: /message?session_id=...

# 2. POST the tools/call request to that endpoint
curl -s --cacert mcpd.crt -X POST "https://localhost:9091/message?session_id=<from step 1>" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $MCP_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"jsonrpc": "2.0", "id": "1", "method": "tools/call", "params": {"name": "processes/delete", "arguments": {"pid": 1234, "signal": "SIGTERM"}}}'

# 3. The result arrives on the SSE stream opened in step 1

Response (not executed here - hypothetical, matches the tool's source code):

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": "1",
  "result": {
    "content": [
      {
        "type": "text",
        "text": "Successfully sent signal SIGTERM to process 1234"
      }
    ]
  }
}

Arguments​

Example​

Arguments

Example