kill-the-port

Kill processes on specified ports - fast, native, cross-platform.

A native Rust binary distributed via npm. No lsof, no netstat, no shell commands. Uses OS-level APIs directly for maximum speed.

Why

Existing port killers (kill-port, fkill) shell out to lsof/netstat which is slow and fragile. kill-the-port uses native APIs:

• Linux: Reads /proc/net/tcp directly
• macOS: Uses libproc syscalls
• Windows: Calls GetExtendedTcpTable Win32 API

Install

# Use directly
npx kill-the-port 3000

# Or install globally
npm install -g kill-the-port

CLI Usage

# Kill single port
kill-the-port 3000

# Kill multiple ports
kill-the-port 3000 8080 9090

# Kill port range
kill-the-port 3000-3010

# Comma-separated
kill-the-port 3000,3001,3002

# Mix and match
kill-the-port 3000 4000-4005 5000,5001

# UDP instead of TCP
kill-the-port 3000 --protocol udp

# Graceful kill (SIGTERM instead of SIGKILL, unix only)
kill-the-port 3000 --graceful

# Dry run - see what would be killed
kill-the-port 3000 --dry-run

# JSON output
kill-the-port 3000 --json

Programmatic API

import { killPort, killPortRange } from 'kill-the-port';

// Kill single port
await killPort({ port: 3000 });

// Kill multiple ports
await killPort({ port: [3000, 8080, 9090] });

// Kill port range
await killPortRange({ from: 3000, to: 3010 });

// With options
await killPort({
  port: 3000,
  protocol: 'udp',
  graceful: true,
  dryRun: true,
});

Options

| Option | CLI Flag | Default | Description | |--------|----------|---------|-------------| | protocol | -p, --protocol | tcp | Protocol to target (tcp or udp) | | graceful | --graceful | false | Send SIGTERM instead of SIGKILL (unix only) | | dryRun | --dry-run | false | Show what would be killed without killing | | json | -j, --json | false | Output as JSON (CLI only) |

How It Works

kill-the-port ships precompiled Rust binaries for each platform via npm's optionalDependencies. When you install it, npm downloads only the binary for your OS/architecture. No Rust toolchain needed.

The binary uses native OS APIs - no subprocess spawning, no lsof, no netstat. Faster than alternatives that shell out to system commands.

Supported Platforms

| Platform | Architecture | |----------|-------------| | macOS | ARM64 (Apple Silicon) | | macOS | x64 (Intel) | | Linux | x64 | | Linux | ARM64 | | Windows | x64 |

License

MIT

Built with commandcode by @saqibameen