Subject: [PATCH v3] transport-helper, connect: use clean_on_exit to reap children on abnormal exit

From: Andrew Au <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 12 Mar 2026 19:55:59 +0000

When a long-running service (e.g., a source indexer) runs as PID 1
inside a container and repeatedly spawns git, git may in turn spawn
child processes such as git-remote-https or ssh. If git exits abnormally
(e.g., via exit(128) on a transport error), the normal cleanup paths
(disconnect_helper, finish_connect) are bypassed, and these children are
never waited on. The children are reparented to PID 1, which does not
reap them, so they accumulate as zombies over time.

Set clean_on_exit and wait_after_clean on child_process structs in both
transport-helper.c and connect.c so that the existing run-command
cleanup infrastructure handles reaping on any exit path. This avoids
rolling custom atexit handlers that call finish_command(), which could
deadlock if the child is blocked waiting for the parent to close a pipe.

The clean_on_exit mechanism sends SIGTERM first, then waits, ensuring
the child terminates promptly. It also handles signal-based exits, not
just atexit.

Signed-off-by: Andrew Au <[email-masked]>

Co-authored-by: Copilot <[email-masked]>
---
Thanks to Jeff King for suggesting the clean_on_exit approach,
which is simpler and avoids potential deadlocks from the atexit
handler in v2. Also thanks to Junio for catching the inaccurate
description of the PID 1 scenario.

 connect.c          | 4 ++++
 transport-helper.c | 2 ++
 2 files changed, 6 insertions(+)

diff --git a/connect.c b/connect.c
index eef752f14..5039adca7 100644
--- a/connect.c
+++ b/connect.c
@@ -989,6 +989,8 @@ static struct child_process *git_proxy_connect(int fd[2], char *host)
 	strvec_push(&proxy->args, port);
 	proxy->in = -1;
 	proxy->out = -1;
+	proxy->clean_on_exit = 1;
+	proxy->wait_after_clean = 1;
 	if (start_command(proxy))
 		die(_("cannot start proxy %s"), git_proxy_command);
 	fd[0] = proxy->out; /* read from proxy stdout */
@@ -1447,6 +1449,8 @@ struct child_process *git_connect(int fd[2], const char *url,
 		}
 		strvec_push(&conn->args, cmd.buf);
 
+		conn->clean_on_exit = 1;
+		conn->wait_after_clean = 1;
 		if (start_command(conn))
 			die(_("unable to fork"));
 
diff --git a/transport-helper.c b/transport-helper.c
index e95267a4a..6633a999b 100644
--- a/transport-helper.c
+++ b/transport-helper.c
@@ -140,6 +140,8 @@ static struct child_process *get_helper(struct transport *transport)
 
 	helper->trace2_child_class = helper->args.v[0]; /* "remote-<name>" */
 
+	helper->clean_on_exit = 1;
+	helper->wait_after_clean = 1;
 	code = start_command(helper);
 	if (code < 0 && errno == ENOENT)
 		die(_("unable to find remote helper for '%s'"), data->name);
-- 
2.43.0