If a qtest program exits without calling qtest_quit(), then the QEMU emulator process will remain running in the background forever.
Unfortunately this scenario is exactly what will happen when a g_assert() check triggers an abort(). Prior to switching to use of 'meson test', this problem would cause tap-driver.pl to hang forever. It was waiting for its STDIN to report EOF, but that would never happen due to the ophaned QEMU emulator processes keeping the pipe open forever. Fortunately this doesn't happen with meson, but it is still desirable to not leak QEMU processes when asserts fire. Using the Linux specific prctl(PR_SET_PDEATHSIG) syscall, we can ensure that QEMU gets sent SIGKILL as soon as the controlling qtest exits, despite being daemonized. Note, technically the death signal is sent when the *thread* that called fork() exits. IOW, if you are calling qtest_init() in one thread, letting that thread exit, and then expecting to run qtest_quit() in a different thread, things are not going to work out. Fortunately that is not a scenario that exists in qtests, as pairs of qtest_init and qtest_quit are always called from the same thread. Signed-off-by: Daniel P. Berrangé <berra...@redhat.com> --- tests/qtest/libqtest.c | 18 ++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 18 insertions(+) diff --git a/tests/qtest/libqtest.c b/tests/qtest/libqtest.c index 228357f1ea..553e82e492 100644 --- a/tests/qtest/libqtest.c +++ b/tests/qtest/libqtest.c @@ -19,6 +19,9 @@ #include <sys/socket.h> #include <sys/wait.h> #include <sys/un.h> +#ifdef __linux__ +#include <sys/prctl.h> +#endif /* __linux__ */ #include "libqtest.h" #include "libqmp.h" @@ -301,6 +304,21 @@ QTestState *qtest_init_without_qmp_handshake(const char *extra_args) s->expected_status = 0; s->qemu_pid = fork(); if (s->qemu_pid == 0) { +#ifdef __linux__ + /* + * If the controlling qtest process exits without calling + * the qtest_quit() method, the QEMU processes will get + * orphaned and remain running forever in the background. + * + * Missing qtest_quit() calls are, unfortunately, exactly + * what happen when a g_assert() check triggers abort() in + * a failing test scenario. + * + * This PR_SET_PDEATHSIG setup will ensure QEMU will + * get terminated with SIGKILL. + */ + prctl(PR_SET_PDEATHSIG, SIGKILL, 0, 0, 0); +#endif /* __linux__ */ if (!g_setenv("QEMU_AUDIO_DRV", "none", true)) { exit(1); } -- 2.36.1