How do SIGTERM and SIGKILL differ when stopping a process?

SIGTERM requests termination and can be handled so the application stops accepting work, finishes or cancels tasks, and releases resources. SIGKILL cannot be caught, blocked, or handled by the process, so application cleanup does not run. Use the service manager’s normal stop path first and allow an appropriate grace period before forced termination. An uninterruptible ke el wait can delay even a pending kill from taking effect. Investigate why shutdown stalls rather than making force-kill the default operating procedure for stateful services.