I have a python script that tests if any firefox processes are running on my windows machine and then kills them:
import os, subprocess
running_processes = subprocess.check_output('tasklist', shell = True)
if "firefox.exe" in running_processes:
os.system("TASKKILL /F /IM firefox.exe")
I would like to only kill firefox processes whose memory consumption and CPU usage are constant over time (i.e. do not change within a certain interval).
How to kill windows processes with constant memory and CPU usage in python?
My current approach to kill stale windows processes involves a function that returns a tuple of (process PID / process memory consumption) for every running process.
If the tuple doesn't change between two consecutive function calls, I kill the process by PID. This approach has one limitation: The to-be-monitored process needs to be known (named) in advance.
import os, subprocess, csv, psutil, time
def get_task_memory(process_name):
running_processes = csv.DictReader( # Get list of running processes
subprocess.check_output(
\"tasklist /fo csv\").splitlines())
PID_list = []
memory_A = []
for task in running_processes: # Loop through running processes
if process_name in task.values():
PID = int(task.values()[2]) # Get process PID
consumption = task.values()[1] # Get memory usage of process with PID
PID_list.append(PID) # Create list of PIDs
memory_A.append(consumption) # Create list of memory usage
process_snapshot = zip(PID_list, memory_A) # Create list of PID:memory usage tuples
return process_snapshot # return tuple for every running process
In an endless loop, I call this function consecutively with a short break in between. In case any process-specific tuple is identical across runs, the memory consumption of the respective process did not change - this process can now be killed by PID.
while True:
process_name = "phantomjs.exe" # PName of process to be monitored
process_snapshot_A = get_task_memory(process_name) # function call 1
time.sleep(n) # Wait
process_snapshot_B = get_task_memory(process_name) # function call 2
stale_processes = [tuple for tuple in process_snapshot_A if tuple in process_snapshot_B]
if len(stale_processes) > 0: # Stale processes
print "stale process found - terminating"
for PID, memory in stale_processes:
stale_process = psutil.Process(PID) # Get PID
stale_process.kill() # Kill PID
else:
pass