How to Ensure Child Executables Terminate When a Go Parent Process is Killed?

Killing Executables After Process Termination in Go

When running separate executables in Golang threads, it's crucial to ensure that these executables are terminated upon the main process being killed. This can arise from user actions or other external factors.

Solution:

There are two primary approaches to achieve this:

1. Process Group Termination:

Create a child process in the same process group as the main process. When the main process is killed, the entire process group, including the child executable, will be terminated.

2. Pdeathsig System Call:

Use the syscall.SetProcAttr function to set the Pdeathsig attribute for the child process. This attribute determines the signal that will be sent to the child process when the parent process exits. By setting it to a value like syscall.SIGTERM, you can ensure the child process is terminated cleanly.

Example:

cmd := exec.Command("./long-process")

cmd.SysProcAttr = &syscall.SysProcAttr{
    Pdeathsig: syscall.SIGTERM,
}

Additional Considerations:

• Signal Handlers: While it's possible to register signal handlers for signals like SIG_INT and SIG_TERM, catching SIG_KILL is not possible. Therefore, relying solely on signal handlers may not be sufficient.
• Panic Handling: In case of a panic in a child process, the parent process may not be notified, leading to orphaned executable processes. Consider using techniques like context.WithCancel to handle panics and ensure proper cleanup.

By implementing these approaches, you can ensure that any executables called by your Golang process are killed when the process itself is terminated, allowing for clean process termination and preventing orphaned processes.

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