dfx stop
Use the dfx stop command to stop the local canister execution environment processes that you currently have running on your computer. In most cases, you run the canister execution environment locally so that you can deploy canisters and test your dapps during development. To simulate the connection to the IC, these processes run continuously either in a terminal shell where you started them or the in the background until you stop or kill them.
Note that you can only run this command from within the project directory structure. For example, if your project name is hello_world, your current working directory must be the hello_world top-level project directory or one of its subdirectories.
Basic usage
dfx stop [flag]
Flags
You can use the following optional flags with the dfx stop command.
| Flag | Description |
|---|---|
-h, --help | Displays usage information. |
-V, --version | Displays version information. |
Examples
You can stop the local canister execution environment processes that are running in the background by changing to a project directory then running the following command:
dfx stop
If the local canister execution environment is running in a current shell rather than in the background, open a new terminal shell, change to a project directory, then run the dfx stop command.
The current process identifier (pid) for the canister execution environment process started by dfx is recorded in the .dfx/pid file. You can view the process identifier before running the dfx stop command by running the following command:
more .dfx/pid
This command displays a process identifier similar to the following:
1896
If you are still having trouble with a persistent service running after attempting to stop, you can terminate all running jobs with:
killall dfx replica