Question

I try to program a TCPServer with threads (ThreadingMixIn) in Python. The problem is that I can’t shut it down properly as I get the socket.error: [Errno 48] Address already in use when I try to run it again. This is a minimal example of the python code that triggers the problem:

import socket
import threading
import SocketServer

class FakeNetio230aHandler(SocketServer.BaseRequestHandler):

    def send(self,message):
        self.request.send(message+N_LINE_ENDING)

    def handle(self):
        self.request.send("Hello\n")

class FakeNetio230a(SocketServer.ThreadingMixIn, SocketServer.TCPServer):
    def __init__(self, server_address, RequestHandlerClass):
        self.allow_reuse_address = True
        SocketServer.TCPServer.__init__(self, server_address, RequestHandlerClass)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    for i in range(2):
        fake_server = FakeNetio230a(("", 1234), FakeNetio230aHandler)
        server_thread = threading.Thread(target=fake_server.serve_forever)
        server_thread.setDaemon(True)
        server_thread.start()
        # might add some client connection here
        fake_server.shutdown()

All the main code should do is to start the server, shut it down and run it again. But it triggers the error stated above because the socket has not been released after the first shutdown.

I thought that setting self.allow_reuse_address = True could solve the problem, but that did not work. When the python program finishes I can run it again straight away and it can start the server once (but again not twice).
However the problem is gone when I randomize the port (replace 1234 by 1234+i for example) as no other server is listening on that address.

There is a similar SO Q Shutting down gracefully from ThreadingTCPServer but the solution (set allow_reuse_address to True does not work for my code and I don’t use ThreadingTCPServer).

How do I have to modify my code in order to be able to start the server twice in my code?

Some more information: The reason why I’m doing this is that I want to run some unit tests for my python project. This requires to provide a (fake) server that my software should to connect to.

edit:
I just found the most correct answer to my problem: I have to add fake_server.server_close() at the end of my main execution code (right after fake_server.shutdown()). I found it in the source file of the TCPServer implementation. All it does is self.socket.close().

Answer 1

Somehow, fake_server doesn’t unbind when you assign to it (in first line in for statement).

To fix that, just remove fake_server at the end of loop:

        del fake_server # force server to unbind