Using module 'subprocess' with timeout

Question

Here\'s the Python code to run an arbitrary command returning its stdout data, or raise an exception on non-zero exit codes:

proc = subprocess.P         


        

Answer 1

Once you understand full process running machinery in *unix, you will easily find simplier solution:

Consider this simple example how to make timeoutable communicate() meth using select.select() (available alsmost everythere on *nix nowadays). This also can be written with epoll/poll/kqueue, but select.select() variant could be a good example for you. And major limitations of select.select() (speed and 1024 max fds) are not applicapable for your task.

This works under *nix, does not create threads, does not uses signals, can be lauched from any thread (not only main), and fast enought to read 250mb/s of data from stdout on my machine (i5 2.3ghz).

There is a problem in join'ing stdout/stderr at the end of communicate. If you have huge program output this could lead to big memory usage. But you can call communicate() several times with smaller timeouts.

class Popen(subprocess.Popen):
    def communicate(self, input=None, timeout=None):
        if timeout is None:
            return subprocess.Popen.communicate(self, input)

        if self.stdin:
            # Flush stdio buffer, this might block if user
            # has been writing to .stdin in an uncontrolled
            # fashion.
            self.stdin.flush()
            if not input:
                self.stdin.close()

        read_set, write_set = [], []
        stdout = stderr = None

        if self.stdin and input:
            write_set.append(self.stdin)
        if self.stdout:
            read_set.append(self.stdout)
            stdout = []
        if self.stderr:
            read_set.append(self.stderr)
            stderr = []

        input_offset = 0
        deadline = time.time() + timeout

        while read_set or write_set:
            try:
                rlist, wlist, xlist = select.select(read_set, write_set, [], max(0, deadline - time.time()))
            except select.error as ex:
                if ex.args[0] == errno.EINTR:
                    continue
                raise

            if not (rlist or wlist):
                # Just break if timeout
                # Since we do not close stdout/stderr/stdin, we can call
                # communicate() several times reading data by smaller pieces.
                break

            if self.stdin in wlist:
                chunk = input[input_offset:input_offset + subprocess._PIPE_BUF]
                try:
                    bytes_written = os.write(self.stdin.fileno(), chunk)
                except OSError as ex:
                    if ex.errno == errno.EPIPE:
                        self.stdin.close()
                        write_set.remove(self.stdin)
                    else:
                        raise
                else:
                    input_offset += bytes_written
                    if input_offset >= len(input):
                        self.stdin.close()
                        write_set.remove(self.stdin)

            # Read stdout / stderr by 1024 bytes
            for fn, tgt in (
                (self.stdout, stdout),
                (self.stderr, stderr),
            ):
                if fn in rlist:
                    data = os.read(fn.fileno(), 1024)
                    if data == '':
                        fn.close()
                        read_set.remove(fn)
                    tgt.append(data)

        if stdout is not None:
            stdout = ''.join(stdout)
        if stderr is not None:
            stderr = ''.join(stderr)

        return (stdout, stderr)

Answer 2

You can do this using select

import subprocess
from datetime import datetime
from select import select

def call_with_timeout(cmd, timeout):
    started = datetime.now()
    sp = subprocess.Popen(cmd, stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
    while True:
        p = select([sp.stdout], [], [], timeout)
        if p[0]:
            p[0][0].read()
        ret = sp.poll()
        if ret is not None:
            return ret
        if (datetime.now()-started).total_seconds() > timeout:
            sp.kill()
            return None

Answer 3

Another option is to write to a temporary file to prevent the stdout blocking instead of needing to poll with communicate(). This worked for me where the other answers did not; for example on windows.

    outFile =  tempfile.SpooledTemporaryFile() 
    errFile =   tempfile.SpooledTemporaryFile() 
    proc = subprocess.Popen(args, stderr=errFile, stdout=outFile, universal_newlines=False)
    wait_remaining_sec = timeout

    while proc.poll() is None and wait_remaining_sec > 0:
        time.sleep(1)
        wait_remaining_sec -= 1

    if wait_remaining_sec <= 0:
        killProc(proc.pid)
        raise ProcessIncompleteError(proc, timeout)

    # read temp streams from start
    outFile.seek(0);
    errFile.seek(0);
    out = outFile.read()
    err = errFile.read()
    outFile.close()
    errFile.close()

Answer 4

https://pypi.python.org/pypi/python-subprocess2 provides extensions to the subprocess module which allow you to wait up to a certain period of time, otherwise terminate.

So, to wait up to 10 seconds for the process to terminate, otherwise kill:

pipe  = subprocess.Popen('...')

timeout =  10

results = pipe.waitOrTerminate(timeout)

This is compatible with both windows and unix. "results" is a dictionary, it contains "returnCode" which is the return of the app (or None if it had to be killed), as well as "actionTaken". which will be "SUBPROCESS2_PROCESS_COMPLETED" if the process completed normally, or a mask of "SUBPROCESS2_PROCESS_TERMINATED" and SUBPROCESS2_PROCESS_KILLED depending on action taken (see documentation for full details)

Answer 5

import subprocess, optparse, os, sys, re, datetime, threading, time, glob, shutil, xml.dom.minidom, traceback

class OutputManager:
    def __init__(self, filename, mode, console, logonly):
        self.con = console
        self.logtoconsole = True
        self.logtofile = False

        if filename:
            try:
                self.f = open(filename, mode)
                self.logtofile = True
                if logonly == True:
                    self.logtoconsole = False
            except IOError:
                print (sys.exc_value)
                print ("Switching to console only output...\n")
                self.logtofile = False
                self.logtoconsole = True

    def write(self, data):
        if self.logtoconsole == True:
            self.con.write(data)
        if self.logtofile == True:
            self.f.write(data)
        sys.stdout.flush()

def getTimeString():
        return time.strftime("%Y-%m-%d", time.gmtime())

def runCommand(command):
    '''
    Execute a command in new thread and return the
    stdout and stderr content of it.
    '''
    try:
        Output = subprocess.Popen(command, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, shell=True).communicate()[0]
    except Exception as e:
        print ("runCommand failed :%s" % (command))
        print (str(e))
        sys.stdout.flush()
        return None
    return Output

def GetOs():
    Os = ""
    if sys.platform.startswith('win32'):
        Os = "win"
    elif sys.platform.startswith('linux'):
        Os = "linux"
    elif sys.platform.startswith('darwin'):
        Os = "mac"
    return Os


def check_output(*popenargs, **kwargs):
    try:
        if 'stdout' in kwargs: 
            raise ValueError('stdout argument not allowed, it will be overridden.') 

        # Get start time.
        startTime = datetime.datetime.now()
        timeoutValue=3600

        cmd = popenargs[0]

        if sys.platform.startswith('win32'):
            process = subprocess.Popen( cmd, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, shell=True) 
        elif sys.platform.startswith('linux'):
            process = subprocess.Popen( cmd , stdout=subprocess.PIPE, shell=True ) 
        elif sys.platform.startswith('darwin'):
            process = subprocess.Popen( cmd , stdout=subprocess.PIPE, shell=True ) 

        stdoutdata, stderrdata = process.communicate( timeout = timeoutValue )
        retcode = process.poll()

        ####################################
        # Catch crash error and log it.
        ####################################
        OutputHandle = None
        try:
            if retcode >= 1:
                OutputHandle = OutputManager( 'CrashJob_' + getTimeString() + '.txt', 'a+', sys.stdout, False)
                OutputHandle.write( cmd )
                print (stdoutdata)
                print (stderrdata)
                sys.stdout.flush()
        except Exception as e:
            print (str(e))

    except subprocess.TimeoutExpired:
            ####################################
            # Catch time out error and log it.
            ####################################
            Os = GetOs()
            if Os == 'win':
                killCmd = "taskkill /FI \"IMAGENAME eq {0}\" /T /F"
            elif Os == 'linux':
                killCmd = "pkill {0)"
            elif Os == 'mac':
                # Linux, Mac OS
                killCmd = "killall -KILL {0}"

            runCommand(killCmd.format("java"))
            runCommand(killCmd.format("YouApp"))

            OutputHandle = None
            try:
                OutputHandle = OutputManager( 'KillJob_' + getTimeString() + '.txt', 'a+', sys.stdout, False)
                OutputHandle.write( cmd )
            except Exception as e:
                print (str(e))
    except Exception as e:
            for frame in traceback.extract_tb(sys.exc_info()[2]):
                        fname,lineno,fn,text = frame
                        print "Error in %s on line %d" % (fname, lineno)

Answer 6

There's an idea to subclass the Popen class and extend it with some simple method decorators. Let's call it ExpirablePopen.

from logging import error
from subprocess import Popen
from threading import Event
from threading import Thread


class ExpirablePopen(Popen):

    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        self.timeout = kwargs.pop('timeout', 0)
        self.timer = None
        self.done = Event()

        Popen.__init__(self, *args, **kwargs)

    def __tkill(self):
        timeout = self.timeout
        if not self.done.wait(timeout):
            error('Terminating process {} by timeout of {} secs.'.format(self.pid, timeout))
            self.kill()

    def expirable(func):
        def wrapper(self, *args, **kwargs):
            # zero timeout means call of parent method
            if self.timeout == 0:
                return func(self, *args, **kwargs)

            # if timer is None, need to start it
            if self.timer is None:
                self.timer = thr = Thread(target=self.__tkill)
                thr.daemon = True
                thr.start()

            result = func(self, *args, **kwargs)
            self.done.set()

            return result
        return wrapper

    wait = expirable(Popen.wait)
    communicate = expirable(Popen.communicate)


if __name__ == '__main__':
    from subprocess import PIPE

    print ExpirablePopen('ssh -T git@bitbucket.org', stdout=PIPE, timeout=1).communicate()