Killing a script launched in a Process via os.system()

Question

I have a python script which launches several processes. Each process basically just calls a shell script:

from multiprocessing import Process
import os
imp         


        

Answer 1

In Python 3.3, the subprocess module supports a timeout: http://docs.python.org/dev/library/subprocess.html

For other solutions regarding Python 2.x, please have a look in this thread: Using module 'subprocess' with timeout

Answer 2

Based on Stop reading process output in Python without hang?:

import os
import time
from subprocess import Popen

def start_process(n, stdout):
    # no need for `global logger` you don't assign to it
    command = [os.path.expanduser("~/Scripts/run.sh"), str(n)]
    logger.debug(command) # no need for if(debug); set logging level instead
    return Popen(command, stdout=stdout) # run directly

# no need to use threads; Popen is asynchronous 
with open('/tmp/scripts_output.txt') as file:
    processes = [start_process(i, file) for i in range(10)]

    # wait at most timeout seconds for the processes to complete
    # you could use p.wait() and signal.alarm or threading.Timer instead
    endtime = time.time() + timeout
    while any(p.poll() is None for p in processes) and time.time() < endtime:
        time.sleep(.04)

    # terminate unfinished processes
    for p in processes:
        if p.poll() is None:
            p.terminate()
            p.wait() # blocks if `kill pid` is ignored

Use p.wait(timeout) if it is available.

Answer 3

Use subprocess instead, whose objects have a terminate() method explicitly for this.

Answer 4

You should use an event to signal the worker to terminate, run the subprocess with subprocess module, then terminate it with Popen.terminate(). Calling Process.terminate() will not allow it worker to clean up. See the documentation for Process.terminate().