What signal would be used to terminate a process gracefully?

To terminate a process gracefully, the signal typically used is SIGTERM. This signal is designed to request the termination of a process in a way that allows the process the opportunity to clean up resources, save state, and perform any necessary shutdown operations. When a process receives a SIGTERM, it can catch this signal, execute any defined signal handler code, and cleanly exit without abruptly stopping.

In contrast, while other signals like SIGINT (often generated by the terminal to stop a process) and SIGHUP (which can indicate a hangup in the terminal connection) might lead to process termination, they do not provide the same level of gracefulness as SIGTERM. Additionally, SIGKILL is a special signal that forces the operating system to terminate a process immediately, bypassing any cleanup procedures. As such, it does not allow the target process to respond or perform necessary cleanup tasks before exiting. This is why SIGTERM is the preferred signal when you want to ensure processes shut down cleanly, making it the correct choice in this context.