diff --git a/mercurial/sshpeer.py b/mercurial/sshpeer.py
--- a/mercurial/sshpeer.py
+++ b/mercurial/sshpeer.py
@@ -70,7 +70,10 @@ class sshpeer(wireproto.wirepeer):
                 (_serverquote(remotecmd), _serverquote(self.path))))
         ui.note(_('running %s\n') % cmd)
         cmd = util.quotecommand(cmd)
-        self.pipeo, self.pipei, self.pipee = util.popen3(cmd)
+
+        # while self.subprocess isn't used, having it allows the subprocess to
+        # to clean up correctly later
+        self.pipeo, self.pipei, self.pipee, self.subprocess = util.popen4(cmd)
 
         # skip any noise generated by remote shell
         self._callstream("hello")
diff --git a/mercurial/util.py b/mercurial/util.py
--- a/mercurial/util.py
+++ b/mercurial/util.py
@@ -129,13 +129,17 @@ def popen2(cmd, env=None, newlines=False
     return p.stdin, p.stdout
 
 def popen3(cmd, env=None, newlines=False):
+    stdin, stdout, stderr, p = popen4(cmd, env, newlines)
+    return stdin, stdout, stderr
+
+def popen4(cmd, env=None, newlines=False):
     p = subprocess.Popen(cmd, shell=True, bufsize=-1,
                          close_fds=closefds,
                          stdin=subprocess.PIPE, stdout=subprocess.PIPE,
                          stderr=subprocess.PIPE,
                          universal_newlines=newlines,
                          env=env)
-    return p.stdin, p.stdout, p.stderr
+    return p.stdin, p.stdout, p.stderr, p
 
 def version():
     """Return version information if available."""