Killing a process created with Python's subprocess.Popen() [duplicate]

Question

Here is my thought:

First of all, I created a process by using subprocess.Popen

Second, after certain amount of time, I tried to kill it by Popen.kill()

import subprocess import os, signal import time  proc1 = subprocess.Popen("kvm -hda /path/xp.img", shell = True) time.sleep(2.0) print 'proc1 = ', proc1.pid subprocess.Popen.kill(proc1) 

However, "proc1" still exists after Popen.kill(). Could any experts tell me how to solve this issue? I appreciate your considerations.

Thanks to the comments from all experts, I did all you recommended, but result still remains the same.

proc1.kill() #it sill cannot kill the proc1

os.kill(proc1.pid, signal.SIGKILL) # either cannot kill the proc1 

Thank you all the same.

And I am still waiting for your precious experience on solving this delicate issue.

Answer 1

In your code it should be

proc1.kill() 

Both kill or terminate are methods of the Popen object. On macOS and Linux, kill sends the signal signal.SIGKILL to the process and terminate sends signal.SIGTERM. On Windows they both call Windows' TerminateProcess() function.

Answer 2

process.terminate() doesn't work when using shell=True. This answer will help you.