diff --git a/client/bin/autotestd_monitor b/client/bin/autotestd_monitor
index 029dbc8..f681863 100755
--- a/client/bin/autotestd_monitor
+++ b/client/bin/autotestd_monitor
@@ -7,6 +7,11 @@
 stdout_start = int(sys.argv[2])  # number of bytes we can skip on stdout
 stderr_start = int(sys.argv[3])  # nubmer of bytes we can skip on stderr
 
+# if any of our tail processes die, the monitor should die too
+def kill_self(signum, frame):
+    os.kill(os.getpid(), signal.SIGTERM)
+signal.signal(signal.SIGCHLD, kill_self)
+
 devnull = open(os.devnull, 'w')
 
 # launch some tail processes to pump the std* streams