ipcrm command in Linux with examples

ipcrm command in Linux is used to remove some IPC(Inter-Process Communication) resources. It eliminates the IPC objects and their associated data structure form the system. One must be a creator or superuser or the owner of the object in order to remove these objects. There are three types of System V IPC objects i.e. semaphores,shared memory, and message queues.

Note:

When all the currently attached processes will remove the object from their virtual address space then only shared memory object can be removed.

Syntax:

ipcrm [options]

or

ipcrm {shm|msg|sem} id...

Options:

• -a, --all [shm] [msg] [sem] : Remove all resources. When an option argument is provided, the removal is performed only for the specified resource types.
• -M, --shmem-key shmkey : Remove the shared memory segment created with shmkey after the last detach is performed.
• -m, --shmem-id shmid : Remove the shared memory segment identified by shmid after the last detach is performed.
• -Q, --queue-key msgkey : Remove the message queue created with msgkey.
• -q, --queue-id msgid : Remove the message queue identified by msgid.
• -S, --semaphore-key semkey : Remove the semaphore created with semkey.
• -s, --semaphore-id semid : Remove the semaphore identified by semid.
• -V, --version : Display version information and exit.

• -h, --help : Display help text and exit.