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Question 14 · Oct 1 · Day 22

GPT on Question 14, Oct 1

I'm writing a bash script to purge orphaned children after the parent dies. What's the idiomatic way?

There is no fully reliable, portable Bash-only mechanism: an EXIT trap does not run if the parent receives SIGKILL, crashes, or the machine loses power.

For normal exits and catchable signals, track child PIDs and clean them up:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

children=()

cleanup() {
    trap - EXIT INT TERM HUP

    if ((${#children[@]})); then
        kill -TERM -- "${children[@]}" 2>/dev/null || true
        wait "${children[@]}" 2>/dev/null || true
    fi
}

trap cleanup EXIT
trap 'exit 129' HUP
trap 'exit 130' INT
trap 'exit 143' TERM

worker1 & children+=("$!")
worker2 & children+=("$!")

wait

Avoid relying on pkill -P $$: it only finds direct children, races with reparenting, and does not handle grandchildren reliably.

If cleanup must also happen after SIGKILL or a crash, use OS-level supervision:

  • •systemd/cgroups: run the script as a service with KillMode=control-group—usually the best Linux solution.
  • •Linux parent-death signal: start each child with a wrapper such as:
  setpriv --pdeathsig TERM -- worker &

This requires a sufficiently recent util-linux, and only signals that direct child; descendants need their own handling.

  • •A dedicated supervisor/container runtime can likewise terminate the whole process group or cgroup.

In short: use traps for orderly Bash cleanup, and a supervisor/cgroup when cleanup must be guaranteed after abrupt parent death.

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openai/gpt-5.6-sol
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There is no fully reliable, portable Bash-only mechanism: an `EXIT` trap does not run if the parent receives `SIGKILL`, crashes, or the machine loses power.
For normal exits and catchable signals, track child PIDs and clean them up:
```bash
#!/usr/bin/env bash
children=()
cleanup() {
trap - EXIT INT TERM HUP
if ((${#children[@]})); then
kill -TERM -- "${children[@]}" 2>/dev/null || true
wait "${children[@]}" 2>/dev/null || true
fi
}
trap cleanup EXIT
trap 'exit 129' HUP
trap 'exit 130' INT
trap 'exit 143' TERM
worker1 & children+=("$!")
worker2 & children+=("$!")
wait
```
Avoid relying on `pkill -P $$`: it only finds direct children, races with reparenting, and does not handle grandchildren reliably.
If cleanup must also happen after `SIGKILL` or a crash, use OS-level supervision:
- **systemd/cgroups:** run the script as a service with `KillMode=control-group`—usually the best Linux solution.
- **Linux parent-death signal:** start each child with a wrapper such as:
```bash
setpriv --pdeathsig TERM -- worker &
```
This requires a sufficiently recent `util-linux`, and only signals that direct child; descendants need their own handling.
- A dedicated supervisor/container runtime can likewise terminate the whole process group or cgroup.
In short: use traps for orderly Bash cleanup, and a supervisor/cgroup when cleanup must be guaranteed after abrupt parent death.

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