diff --git a/xCAT/postscripts/remoteshell b/xCAT/postscripts/remoteshell
index 28f4a3dfa..54390fd93 100755
--- a/xCAT/postscripts/remoteshell
+++ b/xCAT/postscripts/remoteshell
@@ -648,7 +648,7 @@ fi
 #try to kill the process and start
 if [ "$?" != "0" ];then
    PIDLIST=`ps aux | grep -v grep | grep "/usr/sbin/sshd"|awk -F" " '{print $2}'|xargs`
-   [ -n "$PIDLIST" ] && kill 9 $PIDLIST
+   [ -n "$PIDLIST" ] && kill -9 $PIDLIST
    /usr/sbin/sshd
 fi
 kill -9 $CREDPID