What effect does the 'SIGKILL' signal have on a process?

The 'SIGKILL' signal is a specific signal in Unix-like operating systems that immediately terminates a process without allowing it any opportunity to perform cleanup tasks. This means that any resources allocated by the process may be released, but not necessarily in an orderly manner, which can result in resource leaks or other issues, especially if the process was holding locks or managing temporary files.

Unlike other signals, 'SIGKILL' cannot be caught by the process, meaning the process has no chance to handle the signal gracefully, save its state, or execute cleanup code. This makes 'SIGKILL' a powerful tool for system administrators when they need to forcibly stop a misbehaving or unresponsive process.

The options suggesting that the signal pauses the process, allows the process to save its state, or restarts the process do not accurately describe the behavior of 'SIGKILL.' It acts solely as an immediate termination signal, ensuring that the process ceases to exist without any graceful cleanup.