Murder Most Fowl

Dealing with SIGHUP

So there you are, dutifully wading through the documentation for whatever gnarly Linux application you're rassling into submission. You're running commands and editing configuration files and things are working and life is good. Until--yes, you knew the good times weren't going to last--until you hit the dreaded "send the process a SIGHUP" instruction.

Unfazed, you motor onwards. What is a SIGHUP and how do you send it? Is it like a bouquet of flowers that you send your sweetheart? You're pretty sure it's not a verbal command, but you try it anyway. Nope, that's not it. Then you examine the keyboard. Hmm, no SIGHUP key. You re-read the man page for the application:

sshd rereads its configuration file when it receives a hangup signal, SIGHUP by executing itself with the name and options it was started with, e.g., /usr/sbin/sshd

Um. Well.