how to to terminate process using python's multiprocessing

Question

I have some code that needs to run against several other systems that may hang or have problems not under my control. I would like to use python's multiprocessing to spawn child processes to run independent of the main program and then when they hang or have problems terminate them, but I am not sure of the best way to go about this.

When terminate is called it does kill the child process, but then it becomes a defunct zombie that is not released until the process object is gone. The example code below where the loop never ends works to kill it and allow a respawn when called again, but does not seem like a good way of going about this (ie multiprocessing.Process() would be better in the __init__()).

Anyone have a suggestion?

class Process(object):
    def __init__(self):
        self.thing = Thing()
        self.running_flag = multiprocessing.Value("i", 1)

    def run(self):
        self.process = multiprocessing.Process(target=self.thing.worker, args=(self.running_flag,))
        self.process.start()
        print self.process.pid

    def pause_resume(self):
        self.running_flag.value = not self.running_flag.value

    def terminate(self):
        self.process.terminate()

class Thing(object):
    def __init__(self):
        self.count = 1

    def worker(self,running_flag):
        while True:
            if running_flag.value:
                self.do_work()

    def do_work(self):
        print "working {0} ...".format(self.count)
        self.count += 1
        time.sleep(1)

Answer 1

You might run the child processes as daemons in the background.

process.daemon = True

Any errors and hangs (or an infinite loop) in a daemon process will not affect the main process, and it will only be terminated once the main process exits.

This will work for simple problems until you run into a lot of child daemon processes which will keep reaping memories from the parent process without any explicit control.

Best way is to set up a Queue to have all the child processes communicate to the parent process so that we can join them and clean up nicely. Here is some simple code that will check if a child processing is hanging (aka time.sleep(1000)), and send a message to the queue for the main process to take action on it:

import multiprocessing as mp
import time
import queue

running_flag = mp.Value("i", 1)

def worker(running_flag, q):
    count = 1
    while True:
        if running_flag.value:
            print "working {0} ...".format(count)
            count += 1
            q.put(count)
            time.sleep(1)
            if count > 3:
                # Simulate hanging with sleep
                print "hanging..."
                time.sleep(1000)

def watchdog(q):
    """
    This check the queue for updates and send a signal to it
    when the child process isn't sending anything for too long
    """
    while True:
        try:
            msg = q.get(timeout=10.0)
        except queue.Empty as e:
            print "[WATCHDOG]: Maybe WORKER is slacking"
            q.put("KILL WORKER")

def main():
    """The main process"""
    q = mp.Queue()

    workr = mp.Process(target=worker, args=(running_flag, q))
    wdog = mp.Process(target=watchdog, args=(q,))

    # run the watchdog as daemon so it terminates with the main process
    wdog.daemon = True

    workr.start()
    print "[MAIN]: starting process P1"
    wdog.start()
    
    # Poll the queue
    while True:
        msg = q.get()
        if msg == "KILL WORKER":
            print "[MAIN]: Terminating slacking WORKER"
            workr.terminate()
            time.sleep(0.1)
            if not workr.is_alive():
                print "[MAIN]: WORKER is a goner"
                workr.join(timeout=1.0)
                print "[MAIN]: Joined WORKER successfully!"
                q.close()
                break # watchdog process daemon gets terminated

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

Without terminating worker, attempt to join() it to the main process would have blocked forever since worker has never finished.

Answer 2

The way Python multiprocessing handles processes is a bit confusing.

From the multiprocessing guidelines:

Joining zombie processes

On Unix when a process finishes but has not been joined it becomes a zombie. There should never be very many because each time a new process starts (or active_children() is called) all completed processes which have not yet been joined will be joined. Also calling a finished process’s Process.is_alive will join the process. Even so it is probably good practice to explicitly join all the processes that you start.

In order to avoid a process to become a zombie, you need to call it's join() method once you kill it.

If you want a simpler way to deal with the hanging calls in your system you can take a look at pebble.

Answer 3

(Not having enough reputation points to comment, hereby a full answer)

@PieOhPah: thank you for this very nice example.
Unfortunately there is just one little flaw that doesn't let the watchdog kill the worker:

if msg == "KILL WATCHDOG":

it should be:

if msg == "KILL WORKER":

So the code becomes (with print updated for python3):

import multiprocessing as mp
import time
import queue

running_flag = mp.Value("i", 1)

def worker(running_flag, q):
    count = 1
    while True:
        if running_flag.value:
            print ("working {0} ...".format(count))
            count += 1
            q.put(count)
            time.sleep(1)
            if count > 3:
                # Simulate hanging with sleep
                print ("hanging...")
                time.sleep(1000)

def watchdog(q):
    """
    This check the queue for updates and send a signal to it
    when the child process isn't sending anything for too long
    """
    while True:
        try:
            msg = q.get(timeout=10.0)
        except queue.Empty as e:
            print ("[WATCHDOG]: Maybe WORKER is slacking")
            q.put("KILL WORKER")

def main():
    """The main process"""
    q = mp.Queue()

    workr = mp.Process(target=worker, args=(running_flag, q))
    wdog = mp.Process(target=watchdog, args=(q,))

    # run the watchdog as daemon so it terminates with the main process
    wdog.daemon = True

    workr.start()
    print ("[MAIN]: starting process P1")
    wdog.start()

    # Poll the queue
    while True:
        msg = q.get()
#        if msg == "KILL WATCHDOG":
        if msg == "KILL WORKER":
            print ("[MAIN]: Terminating slacking WORKER")
            workr.terminate()
            time.sleep(0.1)
            if not workr.is_alive():
                print ("[MAIN]: WORKER is a goner")
                workr.join(timeout=1.0)
                print ("[MAIN]: Joined WORKER successfully!")
                q.close()
                break # watchdog process daemon gets terminated

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()