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How to check if a process is still running using Python on Linux?

Asked 2008-09-01T15:20:52.277
40

The only nice way I've found is:

import sys
import os

try:
        os.kill(int(sys.argv[1]), 0)
        print "Running"
except:
        print "Not running"

(Source)
But is this reliable? Does it work with every process and every distribution?

python linux unix process
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1 Answer

13

It should work on any POSIX system (although looking at the /proc filesystem, as others have suggested, is easier if you know it's going to be there).

However: os.kill may also fail if you don't have permission to signal the process. You would need to do something like:

import sys
import os
import errno

try:
    os.kill(int(sys.argv[1]), 0)
except OSError, err:
    if err.errno == errno.ESRCH:
        print "Not running"
    elif err.errno == errno.EPERM:
        print "No permission to signal this process!"
    else:
        print "Unknown error"
else:
    print "Running"
answered 2008-09-01T17:40:47.417

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