Can you kill a container by name or ID or either?

[fardok]

File: engine/reference/commandline/kill.md

what is it CONTAINER? - is it code or his name?

[ralphtheninja]

CONTAINER stands for either a container id or container name.

[scjane]

#dibs

[ashishkamat2791]

Hi @mstanleyjones
I checked by running commands. It does not kill as it supposed to but just stop the running container and shows as exited
I think we need to pass the signal using -s flag for docker kill to completely remove container which can be achieved using docker rm -f CONTAINER-ID/CONTAINER-NAME for a single container and docker rm -f $(docker ps ) for all running containers and `docker rm -f $(docker ps -aq) for all running as well as dead containers

[scjane]

@ashishkamat2791 Hi, here's my understanding:

• docker kill forcibly stops running containers. By default, it sends the -s KILL signal even if you only run docker kill <container_id or container_name>; that is, docker kill <container_id or container_name> and docker kill -s KILL <container_id or container_name> work the same way. After running this command for a container, the container is exited but still exists, that is, it still can be seen using docker ps -a and can be started again using docker start.
• docker stop gracefully stops running containers. After running this command for a container, the container is exited but still exists, that is, it still can be seen using docker ps -a and can be started again using docker start.
• docker rm removes containers. After running this command for a container, the container does not exist anymore. It cannot be seen using docker ps -a and thus cannot be started again using docker start.

[mdlinville]

@scjane sounds like you have the info to fix this then!

[scjane]

@mstanleyjones I think we can add information in the "Extended Desciption" section referring that a container can be killed by its ID or name using this command, as the "docker attach" page does, as shown in the following figure.
![155](https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/assets/25146885/25212798/3b6e79dc-25bf-11e7-89a1-bae9643dc258.jpg

Is this the file to be editted?https://github.com/moby/moby/edit/17.03.x/docs/reference/commandline/kill.md

[mdlinville]

@scjane that's the one! But do it in the master branch and make a note that it should be cherry-picked.