Ensuring subprocesses are dead on exiting Python program

Question

Is there a way to ensure all created subprocess are dead at exit time of a Python program? By subprocess I mean those created with subprocess.Popen().

If not, should

Answer 1

Warning: Linux-only! You can make your child receive a signal when its parent dies.

First install python-prctl==1.5.0 then change your parent code to launch your child processes as follows

subprocess.Popen(["sleep", "100"], preexec_fn=lambda: prctl.set_pdeathsig(signal.SIGKILL))

What this says is:

• launch subprocess: sleep 100
• after forking and before exec of the subprocess, the child registers for "send me a SIGKILL when my parent terminates".