How to Ensure Child Processes Exit When the Go Parent Process Terminates?

Kill Child Executables on Parent Process Termination in Go

When running external executables from within a Go process using the exec package, ensuring that the spawned executables are killed when the parent process terminates can be a critical concern.

Problem:

If the parent Go process is forcefully terminated (e.g., via a user interrupt or system crash), the child executables may continue to run, potentially causing unintended consequences or security risks.

Solution:

There are two main approaches to handle this situation:

1. Process Group Termination:

Start the child executable in the same process group as the parent process. When the parent process is killed, the entire process group is terminated, including the child executable.

cmd := exec.Command("child_executable")
cmd.SysProcAttr = &syscall.SysProcAttr{
    Setpgid: true,
}

2. Signal Handling and Process Death:

Set the Pdeathsig field in the SysProcAttr struct of the child process command to specify the signal that will be sent to the child upon the parent's termination.

cmd := exec.Command("child_executable")
cmd.SysProcAttr = &syscall.SysProcAttr{
    Pdeathsig: syscall.SIGTERM,
}

Additional Considerations:

• The Pdeathsig approach will not work for the signal SIGKILL, as this signal cannot be caught by processes.
• As mentioned in the reference provided, using signal handlers to kill child processes before exiting the parent process is often not reliable, as SIG_KILL cannot be intercepted.

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