Automatically shutdown inactive ipython notebooks

Question

Is there any way to configure ipython notebook to not keep inactive notebook processes around alive indefinitely? For example automatically shutdown the notebook whenever the client disconnects, or after being idle for n minutes.

Answer 1

No, there's no config option for that. Feel free to file an issue to request the feature.

Answer 2

This feature was added in release 5.1. See the following issue and pull request

• https://github.com/ipython/ipython/issues/5539
• https://github.com/jupyter/notebook/pull/2215

Answer 3

Solution in 2021

Set the following values in ~/.jupyter/jupyter_notebook_config.py or your config file

c.MappingKernelManager.cull_busy = False
c.MappingKernelManager.cull_connected = False
c.MappingKernelManager.cull_idle_timeout = 86400

where the 86400 means 1 day (= 86400s).

See also

• https://github.com/jupyter/notebook/pull/2215
• https://discourse.jupyter.org/t/which-is-the-correct-way-to-cull-idle-kernels-and-notebook/8123