TL;DR: To terminate all node processes:

killall -9 node

However, make sure to it’s safe to do so.

Problem

When debugging a Node.js app:

node --inspect app.js

You may get the error:

Starting inspector on 127.0.0.1:9229 failed: address already in use

This means the address is already in use by another Node.js app and you may have forgotten to exit it.

Solution

Grep for all running processes with node:

ps ax | grep node

You’ll see something like the following:

86789 s007  S      0:03.12 node --inspect app.js
12345 s021  S+     0:00.00 grep --color=auto --exclude-dir=.bzr --exclude-dir=CVS --exclude-dir=.git --exclude-dir=.hg --exclude-dir=.svn --exclude-dir=.idea --exclude-dir=.tox node

Verify it’s safe to kill the process before terminating it:

kill -9 86789

Remember to replace <pid> with your process id:

kill -9 <pid>

To kill all node processes:

killall -9 node

This solution is inspired by the Stackoverflow answer.