Cross-platform background silent process execution in python

Question

Within a python program I need to run a command in background, without displaying its output. Therefore I'm doing os.system("nohup " + command + " &") for now.

Edit : command shouldn't be killed/closed when python program exits.

However that will only work on Linux, and the content of the file will end up in nohup.out but I don't need it there. Therefore I'm looking for a platform independent solution. os.spawnlp(os.P_DETACH, command) doesn't work, even with the *p version so as to be able not to enter full path to application.

NB. I know that command is generally platform dependent, but that's not the point of my question.

possible duplicate of [How do you create a daemon in Python?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/473620/how-do-you-create-a-daemon-in-python) — Aaron Digulla, Aug 22 '11 at 15:43

score 3 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 10:34

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You are looking for a daemon process. Look at How do you create a daemon in Python? or http://blog.ianbicking.org/daemon-best-practices.html

edited May 23 '17 at 10:34

Community

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answered Aug 22 '11 at 15:34

rocksportrocker

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http://stackoverflow.com/questions/972362/spawning-process-from-python/972383#972383 looks good – pictuga Aug 28 '11 at 14:46

nmichaels · Answer 2 · 2011-08-22T14:58:42.967

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Look into the subprocess module.

from subprocess import Popen, PIPE
process = Popen(['command', 'arg'], stdout=PIPE)

edited Aug 22 '11 at 14:58

answered Aug 22 '11 at 14:50

nmichaels

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Works fine. But `command` is killed when python program closes. – pictuga Aug 22 '11 at 15:08
You'll have to wait for it to finish. You can use `process.communicate()` or poll on the return code. – nmichaels Aug 22 '11 at 15:19
`command` has to be independent from python script. If I kill python, `command` has to keep running. – pictuga Aug 22 '11 at 15:35

Cross-platform background silent process execution in python

2 Answers2