Daemonizing python's BaseHTTPServer

Question

I am working on a daemon where I need to embed a HTTP server. I am attempting to do it with BaseHTTPServer, which when I run it in the foreground, it works fine, but when I tr

Answer 1

Here's how to do this with the python-daemon library:

from BaseHTTPServer import (HTTPServer, BaseHTTPRequestHandler)
import contextlib

import daemon

from my_app_config import config

# Make the HTTP Server instance.
server = HTTPServer(
    (config['HTTPServer']['listen'], config['HTTPServer']['port']),
    BaseHTTPRequestHandler)

# Make the context manager for becoming a daemon process.
daemon_context = daemon.DaemonContext()
daemon_context.files_preserve = [server.fileno()]

# Become a daemon process.
with daemon_context:
    server.serve_forever()

As usual for a daemon, you need to decide how you will interact with the program after it becomes a daemon. For example, you might register a systemd service, or write a PID file, etc. That's all outside the scope of the question though.

In particular, it's outside the scope of the question to ask: once it's become a daemon process (necessarily detached from any controlling terminal), how do I stop the daemon process? That's up to you to decide, as part of defining the program's behaviour.