os.fork leaving processes behind

[Gabriel Genellina]

En Thu, 27 Dec 2007 21:36:36 -0300, Falcolas <garrickp at gmail.com> escribió:

> This may be more of a Linux question, but it relates to how Python
> forks...

Yes; every book describing how to use fork tells about zombie processes  
and the wait/waitpid functions. Just do the same thing in Python.

> Today, I implemented a pretty simple listener script using os.fork.
> The script runs fine, and performs as expected, but the process table
> is left with an odd entry for every fork called.

A "zombie".

> I'm running on Slackware 9, under the 2.4 kernel, Python 2.5.1.
>
> while True:
>     conn, addr  = s.accept()
>     if os.fork():
>         continue
>     else:
>         handle_connection(conn)
>         sys.exit(0)

I'd try to use any of the existing server implementations in  
SocketServer.py, but if you insist on using your own, look at the  
ForkingMixin class as an example of using waitpid() to avoid having zombie  
processes.

-- 
Gabriel Genellina