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

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Built with commandcode by @saqibameen