killport

A command-line tool to kill processes and containers running on specified ports.

Features

• Kill processes and containers by port number (single or multiple ports)
• Container runtime support — works with Docker, OrbStack, Podman, Colima, and any OCI-compatible runtime
• Dry-run mode — preview what would be killed without doing it
• Signal control — send any signal (SIGTERM, SIGKILL, SIGINT, etc.)
• Shell completions — built-in support for bash, zsh, and fish
• Cross-platform — Linux, macOS, and Windows

Installation

Homebrew

brew install killport

Cargo

cargo install killport

Shell script

curl -sL https://bit.ly/killport | sh

Add $HOME/.local/bin to your PATH if it's not already there.

Binary releases

Download pre-built binaries from the releases page. Each release includes shell completions and a man page.

Usage

killport [OPTIONS] <ports>...

Examples

Kill whatever is using port 8080:

killport 8080

Kill multiple ports at once:

killport 3000 8080 9090

Send SIGTERM instead of SIGKILL:

killport -s sigterm 8080

Dry run — see what would be killed:

killport --dry-run 8080
# Would kill process 'node' listening on port 8080

Kill only containers (skip native processes):

killport --mode container 8080

Suppress exit code 2 when nothing is found (useful in scripts):

killport --no-fail 8080

Options

Flag	Description
-m, --mode <MODE>	Target mode: auto (default), process, or container
-s, --signal <SIG>	Signal to send (default: SIGKILL). See supported signals
--dry-run	Preview what would be killed without terminating anything
--no-fail	Exit 0 even when no matching process or container is found
-v, --verbose	Increase verbosity (repeat for more: -vv, -vvv)
-q, --quiet	Decrease verbosity (repeat for less: -qq)
-h, --help	Show help
-V, --version	Show version

Exit codes

Code	Meaning
0	Target(s) found and killed (or --no-fail was used)
1	Error (permission denied, internal failure, etc.)
2	No matching process or container found on the specified port(s)

How it works

In auto mode (default), killport:

1. Checks if a container runtime is available
2. If containers are found on the port, kills only the containers (port forwarder processes like docker-proxy or OrbStack Helper are automatically skipped)
3. If no containers are found, falls back to killing native processes

Use --mode process or --mode container to target only one type.

Shell completions

Shell completions are included in release tarballs under completions/. To install:

bash — copy to ~/.local/share/bash-completion/completions/killport

zsh — copy to a directory in your $fpath (e.g., ~/.zsh/completions/_killport)

fish — copy to ~/.config/fish/completions/killport.fish

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. See CONTRIBUTING.md and CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md.

License

MIT