How to Kill Background Child Process in Bash

Terminate Background Child Process in Bash

In Bash by child process that sent into background is still alive when main program is terminated. Take a look an example below.

#!/bin/bash

# Run a Python web server
python -m http.server src/ &

# Run SASS watcher and compiler...
sass --watch src/scss:src/css &

wait

When we run script above and terminate using CTRL+C Python and SASS are still running.

Solution to terminate Background Child Process in Bash

The solution to above problem is using shell built-in trap command.

#!/bin/bash

# Kill all child process (Python and SASS) when exit
trap "kill 0" EXIT

# Run a Python web server
python -m http.server src/ &

# Run SASS watcher and compiler...
sass --watch src/scss:src/css &

wait

Now when the script is exited all the child process even which has been sent as background process will also terminated.

References

• https://spin.atomicobject.com/2017/08/24/start-stop-bash-background-process/

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