asyncio.subprocess spawning can block
Nadie ha tomado este issue todavía.
- Lenguaje dominante
- Python
- Estrellas
- 77.2k
- Forks
- 35.9k
- Métricas de merge de PR
- Métricas de PR pendientes
Descripción
Bug report
Bug description:
asyncio.create_subprocess_exec() and asyncio.create_subprocess_shell() call subprocess.Popen() synchronously on the event loop thread. Popen._execute_child() performs a blocking os.read() on a CLOEXEC error pipe (Lib/subprocess.py, current main line 1995) that doesn't return until the child completes execve(). This blocks the event loop for the duration of:
fork()/posix_spawn()— page-table duplication proportional to parent process size- Child-side setup (signal disposition, fd operations,
chdir, uid/gid changes) execve()— kernel loads the binary, maps pages before applying O_CLOEXEC
The call chain on the event loop thread is:
_make_subprocess_transport() [async — Lib/asyncio/unix_events.py:197]
→ _UnixSubprocessTransport.__init__() [sync]
→ BaseSubprocessTransport.__init__() [sync — Lib/asyncio/base_subprocess.py:40]
→ self._start() [sync]
→ subprocess.Popen() [sync]
→ _execute_child() [sync — Lib/subprocess.py:1878]
→ os.read(errpipe_read, 50000) [BLOCKS — line 1995]
In production, we have observed this blocking the event loop for multiple seconds when a Python process spawns a large binary (with a substantial statically-linked dependency set) on a system that was within operational parameters for memory usage (no ongoing swapping or similar) but subject to IO read contention slowing the binary-loading process.
The original python/asyncio#414 identified this in 2016; the asyncio repo was archived without resolution or migration to cpython's tracker.
#81444 would serve to fix this issue (by having asyncio.subprocess dispatch to a thread). However, I'm not sure it constitutes the only fix, or even an ideal fix — we should be able to watch for the FIFO either closing or having data available to read using natively asynchronous syscalls.
Observed in production on Python 3.13; determination that the issue still exists in 3.14 and current main based on source tree inspection.
CPython versions tested on:
3.13
Operating systems tested on:
Linux
Linked PRs
- gh-154111
Guía de contribución
Primeros pasos
- Lee el issue completo y luego la guía de contribución del proyecto.
- Comenta en el issue que vas a ocuparte — evita que dos personas hagan lo mismo.
- Haz un fork del repositorio y trabaja en una rama.
- Abre un pull request que haga referencia al número del issue.
Línea de trabajo
Sigue la ruta de llamadas desde _make_subprocess_transport() en Lib/asyncio/unix_events.py pasando por Lib/asyncio/base_subprocess.py y subprocess.Popen() en Lib/subprocess.py. Revisa el trabajo vinculado de gh-154111 antes de continuar; la finalización debería impedir que el inicio de subprocess bloquee el bucle de eventos e incluir cobertura de regresión para el comportamiento informado.
Escrito por el modelo de indexación a partir del texto del issue.
Evaluación
- Stack tecnológico
- python
- Área
- operating-systems
- Tipo de issue
- Error
- Dificultad
- 5/5
- Tiempo estimado
- Más de una semana
- Estado de actividad
- Estancado
- Claridad
- Necesita aclaración
- Aptitud para principiantes
- 30/100