How can you find and kill a process by its name?

The command that allows you to find and kill a process by its name is the one that uses the pkill command. This command is specifically designed to search for processes based on name patterns and send signals to those processes. When you execute pkill process_name, it looks for all processes whose names match the specified pattern and terminates them.

This option is effective because it allows for flexibility in defining the target processes—if you have multiple instances of a process running, pkill can terminate all of them simultaneously based on name matching. Additionally, pkill supports various options and signal specifications, which enhances its functionality.

The other commands do have specific uses but do not correctly fulfill the requirement of finding and killing a process by name in the same way. The killall command can also terminate processes by name but is more specific to the exact name and may not be as versatile as pkill. The kill command does require the process ID (PID) to terminate a process, which does not align with the requirement of using the process name. The choice of process_kill is not a valid command in Linux, making it irrelevant for this context.