Can't detach child process when main process is started from systemd

Question

I want to spawn long-running child processes that survive when the main process restarts/dies. This works fine when running from the terminal:

$ cat exectest.go
package main

import (
        "log"
        "os"
        "os/exec"
        "syscall"
        "time"
)

func main() {
        if len(os.Args) == 2 && os.Args[1] == "child" {
                for {   
                        time.Sleep(time.Second)
                }
        } else {
                cmd := exec.Command(os.Args[0], "child")
                cmd.SysProcAttr = &syscall.SysProcAttr{Setsid: true}
                log.Printf("child exited: %v", cmd.Run())
        }
}
$ go build
$ ./exectest
^Z
[1]+  Stopped                 ./exectest
$ bg
[1]+ ./exectest &
$ ps -ef | grep exectest | grep -v grep | grep -v vim
snowm     7914  5650  0 23:44 pts/7    00:00:00 ./exectest
snowm     7916  7914  0 23:44 ?        00:00:00 ./exectest child
$ kill -INT 7914 # kill parent process
[1]+  Exit 2                  ./exectest
$ ps -ef | grep exectest | grep -v grep | grep -v vim
snowm     7916     1  0 23:44 ?        00:00:00 ./exectest child

Note that the child process is still alive after parent process was killed. However, if I start the main process from systemd like this...

[snowm@localhost exectest]$ cat /etc/systemd/system/exectest.service 
[Unit]
Description=ExecTest

[Service]                        
Type=simple
ExecStart=/home/snowm/src/exectest/exectest
User=snowm

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
$ sudo systemctl enable exectest
ln -s '/etc/systemd/system/exectest.service' '/etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/exectest.service'
$ sudo systemctl start exectest

... then the child also dies when I kill the main process:

$ ps -ef | grep exectest | grep -v grep | grep -v vim
snowm     8132     1  0 23:55 ?        00:00:00 /home/snowm/src/exectest/exectest
snowm     8134  8132  0 23:55 ?        00:00:00 /home/snowm/src/exectest/exectest child
$ kill -INT 8132
$ ps -ef | grep exectest | grep -v grep | grep -v vim
$

How can I make the child survive?

Running go version go1.4.2 linux/amd64 under CentOS Linux release 7.1.1503 (Core).

Solution

Solution is to add

KillMode=process

to the service block. Default value is control-group which means systemd cleans up any child processes.

From man systemd.kill

KillMode= Specifies how processes of this unit shall be killed. One of control-group, process, mixed, none.

If set to control-group, all remaining processes in the control group of this unit will be killed on unit stop (for services: after the stop command is executed, as configured with ExecStop=). If set to process, only the main process itself is killed. If set to mixed, the SIGTERM signal (see below) is sent to the main process while the subsequent SIGKILL signal (see below) is sent to all remaining processes of the unit's control group. If set to none, no process is killed. In this case, only the stop command will be executed on unit stop, but no process be killed otherwise. Processes remaining alive after stop are left in their control group and the control group continues to exist after stop unless it is empty.

Comments

[Alexis Wilke]

Would there be a way to move the process out of the group instead?

[DonutGaz]

This saved me. Thank you.

[rien333]

Today, the manual tells us that "If set to 'process', only the main process itself is killed (not recommended!)". Any idea why this is discouraged?