# Close a KubeMQ Elixir Client (/sdks/elixir/how-to/connection/close)



## Overview [#overview]

Closing a client isn't an afterthought — it tells the broker and your own process that this connection is done, so both sides release what they were holding for it. A KubeMQ client in Elixir is a GenServer process wrapping a gRPC channel plus whatever subscriptions it's servicing. Skip the close and those linger — the channel stays open and the process stays alive — and in short-lived scripts or test suites you leak both connections and processes until the VM shuts down.

Calling `KubeMQ.Client.close/1` stops the GenServer, which releases the gRPC channel and cleans up subscriptions as part of its termination. Once it returns, `Process.alive?/1` on that client reference returns `false`, confirming the process actually terminated.

**Gotchas:** the GenServer drains what's in flight during termination, not indefinitely, so a slow consumer can still lose the tail of a burst if you close mid-stream; a closed client's process is gone forever — no reconnect on the same reference, start a new `start_link`; and if you hold the client reference in supervisor state, forgetting to call `close/1` before it's discarded leaves an orphaned process running until its supervisor or the VM tears it down.

## Prerequisites [#prerequisites]

* KubeMQ server running on `localhost:50000`
* Elixir SDK installed (`{:kubemq, "~> 1.0"}` in mix.exs)

## Code [#code]

```elixir title="main.exs"
IO.puts("Connecting to KubeMQ server...")
{:ok, client} = KubeMQ.Client.start_link(address: "localhost:50000", client_id: "elixir-close-example")
IO.puts("Connected. State: #{KubeMQ.Client.connection_state(client)}")

IO.puts("Closing connection...")
KubeMQ.Client.close(client)
IO.puts("Connection closed. Process alive? #{Process.alive?(client)}")
```

## How It Works [#how-it-works]

* `close/1` stops the GenServer, which releases the gRPC channel and cleans up subscriptions
* After closing, `Process.alive?/1` returns `false` confirming the process has terminated
* Always close clients when done to prevent resource leaks

## Related [#related]

* [Connect](/sdks/elixir/tutorials/connect)
* [Graceful Shutdown](/sdks/elixir/how-to/error-handling/graceful-shutdown)