LFCS Essential Commands Practice Question
A process is consuming 99% CPU and is unresponsive to normal shutdown requests. After running 'top', you see the PID is 1234. What is the most appropriate command to stop the process gracefully first?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is that candidates often jump to kill -9 (SIGKILL) as the first solution when a process is unresponsive, but the LFCS exam emphasizes the principle of escalating signals gracefully, starting with SIGTERM.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
kill -15 1234
Kill -15 1234. The SIGTERM signal (15) is the standard way to request a process terminate gracefully, allowing it to clean up resources, close files, and perform shutdown routines. This is the most appropriate first step before escalating to stronger signals, as it gives the process a chance to exit normally.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
kill -15 1234
Why this is correct
SIGTERM is the default and polite way to terminate a process.
- ✗
kill -19 1234
Why it's wrong here
SIGSTOP suspends the process; it does not terminate it.
- ✗
kill -2 1234
Why it's wrong here
SIGINT is intended for interactive processes and may be ignored by background processes.
- ✗
kill -9 1234
Why it's wrong here
SIGKILL forcefully kills the process without cleanup, which can lead to data loss or corruption.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This LFCS practice question is part of Courseiva's free Linux Foundation certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the LFCS exam.