[mod_python] Re: forks, daemons and other beasts

> >>> Anyway, I have the feeling that there must be a more sane and
> >>> probably
> >>> safe way of achieving what I would like by a much simpler method.
> >>>
> >>> Any ideas?
> >>
> >> A quick one.
> >>
> >> Run a small separate daemon process which embeds an  XML-RPC
> >> server and have your web pages use XML-RPC to call that daemon
> >> process to trigger off the task. The daemon process can still fork
> >> exec
> >> as necessary.
> >>
> >> This way you eliminate a fork in Apache child process which may be
> >> problematic because of the socket connections etc that are inherited.
> >
> > Well, that still looks like to me that I'm shooting a bird with a
> > cannon. The reason is that I need to do something really simple: users
> > upload a zip file (remember my questions about the zipfile module? :))
> > and should get an acknowledgement that the upload was successful. The
> > server should start unpacking the archive, check if the files are okay
> > and move them to a directory. All of this can take quite long, so the
> > acknowledgement should be sent before this unpacking/checking/moving
> > finishes.
>
> The suggestion I gave wouldn't preclude an acknowledgement being
> sent before the unpacking begins.
>
> Have you simply considered using a separate thread to do the unpacking?

Hmmmmm, what do you mean exactly? When I do an os.fork the whole
apache forks, you mean that I should start a brand new thread, outside
of apache?