1) What is the C function to obtain a process id of say smbd and nmbd or any other process using the name of that process?

2) What is the C function to stop a process ID?

I do not want to use system("killall nmbd") since this will execute a bash command from within a C program. I wanted to use all C function.

Dog isn't my best friend, man is. ;>

man 5 proc
man 2 kill

Flibble

man 5 proc and man 2 kill

You mean a man page on proc and kill ? manual page is bash command not a built in C function, am I correct ? What I was asking was the built in C function.

Are you sure you didn't forget to type the '2' in between 'man' and 'kill'.
If you did type the '2', but you didn't get a man page, you probably have not installed the development man pages package. In Debian this package is called 'manpages-dev'.

I thnk Flibble was gently teasing - he/she meant read those manual pages...

You got it. ;>

Flibble

man 2 kill

KILL(2) Linux Programmer’s Manual KILL(2)

NAME
kill - send signal to a process

SYNOPSIS
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <signal.h>

int kill(pid_t pid, int sig);


man 5 proc

PROC(5) Linux Programmer’s Manual PROC(5)

NAME
proc - process information pseudo-filesystem

DESCRIPTION
/proc is a pseudo-filesystem which is used as an interface to kernel
data structures rather than reading and interpreting /dev/kmem. Most
of it is read-only, but some files allow kernel variables to be
changed.

The following outline gives a quick tour through the /proc hierarchy.