Python: ulimit and nice for subprocess.call / subprocess.Popen?

Question

I need to limit the amount of time and cpu taken by external command line apps I spawn from a python process using subprocess.call , mainly because sometimes the spawned pro

Answer 1

You can set limits for subprocesses with the ulimit and nice shell commands like this:

import subprocess
subprocess.Popen('ulimit -t 60; nice -n 15 cpuhog', shell=True)

This runs cpuhog with a limit of 60 seconds of CPU time and a niceness adjustment of 15. Note that there is no simple way to set a 20% CPU throttle as such. The process will use 100% CPU unless another (less nice) process also needs the CPU.