Child process not getting killed using PID nodejs, express, Docker

Question

I am trying to create a child process to establish remote access. The process itself runs fine but I am having difficulty with killing the process. The process gets killed but gets spawned again. I have tried using exec and execFile as well but it did not work. I am a beginner in node so please excuse me if there are any small mistakes.

app.post('/:vdms_id/:docker_id/:tool', async(req, res) => {
    let vdms_id = req.params.vdms_id;
    let docker_id = req.params.docker_id;
    let tool = req.params.tool;

        switch (tool) {
            case 'remote-access':
                try{
                    if(req.body.host){
                    
                    //Run remote access commands here
                    const child = spawn("docker",["exec",`${docker_id}`,"tcptunnel",`--local-port=${req.body.free_port}`,`--remote-port=${req.body.private_port}`,`--remote-host=${req.body.private_ip}`,"--stay-alive","--fork"]);

                    // Write PID along with private IP and port to DB here
                    await new RemoteAccess({
                        pid:child.pid,
                        username:req.body.username,
                        vdms_id:vdms_id,
                        docker_id:docker_id,
                        free_port:req.body.free_port,
                        private_ip:req.body.private_ip,
                        private_port:req.body.private_port,
                        timestamp:Date.now()
                    }).save();

                    console.log('PID WAS SAVED TO DB');

                    return res.json({success:true});

                    }
                    
                    case 'end-remote-access':
                     let result = await RemoteAccess.findOne({private_port:req.body.private_port,username:req.body.username});
                     console.log("REMOTE_ACCESS",result);

                    // Kill the child process here
                      process.kill(result.pid);

Answer 1

The problem is that you're passing an argument to tcptunnel - --fork, which means to make a new process which is no longer tracked by exec

So you may need to stop or restart the container in order to kill this.