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Tcpkill

Open-knowledge reference entry

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 4, 2026
Entity authorityQ7690699
Source-derived summary

Tcpkill is a network utility program that can be used to terminate connections to or from a particular host, network, port, or combination of all. These programs take standard Berkeley Packet Filter (BPF) filters. This can be used for both port mirroring and ARP spoofing.

Examples

To prevent any connections to the host www.google.com use this command:

/usr/sbin/tcpkill −9 host www.google.com

The computer that is attempting to go to that site will be blocked from that site only, but can surf any other site. It is a good idea to either redirect the output into nothingness ( > 2>/dev/null 1>/dev/null) or into a file for later analysis (> file.tcpkill ). By default, it will redirect output to the console.

More hosts can be specified with the command:

/usr/sbin/tcpkill −9 host www.google.com and host www.yahoo.com

To block well−known ports e.g., napster (port 8888 and port 6699) or gnutella (port 6346), the command:

/usr/sbin/tcpkill −9 port 8888 and port 6699

or

/usr/sbin/tcpkill −9 port 6346

DoS with tcpkill

Tcpkill can be used to create a DoS attack within a WAN or LAN, and this can be done by using a sniffer like dsniff or tcpdump to look at the packets that are being transmitted and to pick a target that you want to deny service. Assume the target has been identified as 192.168.100.38, a simple command like:

tcpkill -9 host 192.168.100.38

will kill all outgoing tcp packets (TCP segment) between the target and the rest of the network. Prior to the attack the target can receive packets from the rest of the network.

Options

-i

the -i option specify which interface you want the program to listen on.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Tcpkill” as open-knowledge reference entry. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current 276-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Tcpkill, Open-knowledge and entry can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as open-knowledge reference entry. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7690699. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  2. Expand the search: follow Tcpkill primary sources, Tcpkill archive and Tcpkill research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Tcpkill” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.