kill-gpu

name	kill-gpu
description	Kill GPU-occupying Python/vLLM processes to free GPU memory. Use when nvidia-smi shows memory in use by dead or unwanted processes.

Kill GPU Processes

Steps

1. Show which PIDs are using GPU memory:

nvidia-smi --query-compute-apps=pid,used_memory,name --format=csv,noheader

2. Find candidate Python and vLLM processes:

pgrep -a python; pgrep -a vllm

3. Kill identified PIDs:

kill -9 <PID>

4. Wait 2–3 seconds, then verify memory is freed:

nvidia-smi | grep -E "MiB.*MiB"

Notes

• If nvidia-smi --query-compute-apps shows a PID that no longer exists in pgrep, it's a zombie CUDA context — killing the parent process or waiting a few seconds usually clears it.
• Confirm with user which PIDs to kill unless they said "kill all".