Repo.clone_from fails and leaves orphaned processes

[maxamel]

Hello,
We have a list of repositories we're running over and performing Repo.clone_from on each one.
I can see the underlying command created is:
git clone -v --depth=1 -b 3.23.66 -- ssh://*****@*****lab-prod.server.sim.cloud/terraform/modules/aws-eks /tmp/dest

The operations fail with Could not resolve hostname (which is OK), but the problem is that the exit is not clean and leaves ssh processes dangling. From investigating it looks like they are zombie processes with no cmdLine or any other useful info.
These processes quickly pile up and cause us to hit system limits. Please assist with understanding the issue.

Any advice will be much appreciated.

[maxamel]

Example process info:
{'memory_percent': 0.0, 'gids': pgids(real=990, effective=990, saved=990), 'cpu_num': 1, 'pid': 85, 'num_ctx_switches': pctxsw(voluntary=5, involuntary=0), 'cpu_times': pcputimes(user=0.0, system=0.0, children_user=0.0, children_system=0.0, iowait=0.0), 'environ': None, 'exe': '', 'cpu_affinity': [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5], 'cwd': None, 'num_fds': None, 'ionice': pionice(ioclass=<IOPriority.IOPRIO_CLASS_NONE: 0>, value=4), 'open_files': None, 'threads': [pthread(id=85, user_time=0.0, system_time=0.0)], 'username': 'sbx_user1051', 'io_counters': None, 'cpu_percent': 0.0, 'terminal': None, 'nice': 0, 'name': 'ssh', 'memory_info': pmem(rss=0, vms=0, shared=0, text=0, lib=0, data=0, dirty=0), 'memory_maps': [], 'connections': None, 'cmdline': [], 'num_threads': 1, 'memory_full_info': pfullmem(rss=0, vms=0, shared=0, text=0, lib=0, data=0, dirty=0, uss=0, pss=0, swap=0), 'status': 'zombie', 'create_time': 1693825223.25, 'uids': puids(real=993, effective=993, saved=993), 'ppid': 1}

Note the parent is init, which means this process is orphaned and the real parent terminated.

[Byron]

You could try it with a plain git command via gitpython.Git.clone() (actually, I don't know how to instantiate a git-command by hand but I am sure you will find out) to see if that resolves the problem. If so, it's clear that it's something about the way GitPython calls git from Repo.clone_from() so maybe there is a way to fix it. If the issue persists, it's something in cmd.py and maybe there are other ways to launch the git command to avoid this issue.

In theory, assuming python won't interfere with children of its own child processes, this would be a git issue as well as it's the git program that spawn ssh sessions.

[maxamel]

Hello @Byron ,
I verified and it is indeed a git issue. I ran this without the python code and I can still see the defunct ssh processes left on the system.

[Byron]

Thanks. It looks like there is nothing that could be done here as it's a problem with git itself.