Question

I have a python daemon running as a part of my web app/ How can I quickly check (using python) if my daemon is running and, if not, launch it?

I want to do it that way to fix any crashes of the daemon, and so the script does not have to be run manually, it will automatically run as soon as it is called and then stay running.

How can i check (using python) if my script is running?

Answer 1

Drop a pidfile somewhere (e.g. /tmp). Then you can check to see if the process is running by checking to see if the PID in the file exists. Don’t forget to delete the file when you shut down cleanly, and check for it when you start up.

#/usr/bin/env python

import os
import sys

pid = str(os.getpid())
pidfile = "/tmp/mydaemon.pid"

if os.path.isfile(pidfile):
    print "%s already exists, exiting" % pidfile
    sys.exit()
file(pidfile, 'w').write(pid)
try:
    # Do some actual work here
finally:
    os.unlink(pidfile)

Then you can check to see if the process is running by checking to see if the contents of /tmp/mydaemon.pid are an existing process. Monit (mentioned above) can do this for you, or you can write a simple shell script to check it for you using the return code from ps.

ps up `cat /tmp/mydaemon.pid ` >/dev/null && echo "Running" || echo "Not running"

For extra credit, you can use the atexit module to ensure that your program cleans up its pidfile under any circumstances (when killed, exceptions raised, etc.).