Create daemon process in Python

#!/usr/bin/env python
# Filename: daemon.py

# Make the process to run in the background.

__author__ = "Karthikeyan Periasamy"
__version__ = "0.1"
__all__ = ["daemonize"]

# Standard modules
import os               # OS interface functions.
import sys              # System specific functions.
from syslog import *    # Logging functions.

# Daemon parameters
UMASK = 0       # File mode creation mask for the calling process 
WORKDIR = "/"   # The Working directory

# Find the null device /dev/null
if (hasattr(os, "devnull")):
    NULL_DEVICE = os.devnull
else:
    NULL_DEVICE = "/dev/null"
    
# Function
def daemonize (procname):
    openlog (procname, LOG_PID)
    
    try:
        # Fork the child
        syslog (LOG_INFO, "Daemizing")
        syslog (LOG_INFO, "Creating the first child")
        pid = os.fork ()
        
        # Exit from the parent
        if 0 != pid:
            syslog (LOG_INFO, "Parent exiting")
            os._exit (0)

        # Make the child as the leader of the process
        syslog (LOG_INFO, "Child created")
        syslog (LOG_INFO, "Creating a new session")
        os.setsid ()

        # Fork a child again to make sure that no terminal device is connected to it.
        syslog (LOG_INFO, "Creating the second child")
        pid = os.fork ()

        # Exit from the first child
        if 0 != pid:
            syslog (LOG_INFO, "First child exiting")
            os._exit (0)

        # Set the calling process's file mode creation mask
        syslog (LOG_INFO, "Set the calling process's file mode creation mask")
        os.umask (UMASK)

        # Changing working directory to '/' to make sure that
        # the process does not depend on any mounted partition
        # execpt the root of the filesystem
        logmsg = 'Changing working directory to "' + WORKDIR + '" to avoid dependencies'
        syslog (LOG_INFO, logmsg)
        os.chdir (WORKDIR)

        # Close standard input, output and error file descriptors
        syslog (LOG_INFO, "Closing I/O file descriptors")
        os.close (0)
        os.close (1)
        os.close (2)

        # Redirect standard output and errror to /dev/null
        os.open(NULL_DEVICE, os.O_RDWR)
        os.dup2(0, 1)
        os.dup2(0, 2)

    except:
        logmsg = "Unexpected error:" + repr (sys.exc_info()[1])
        syslog (LOG_ERR, logmsg)
        os._exit (1)


# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Main program (for testing)
# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

if __name__ == '__main__':

    daemonize("daemon_test")
    syslog(LOG_INFO, 'Daemon is sleeping for 10 seconds')

    import time
    for i in range (10):
        syslog(LOG_INFO, 'Sleeping...')
        time.sleep(1)

    syslog(LOG_INFO, 'Daemon exiting')
    sys.exit(0)

Reference: http://code.activestate.com/recipes/278731-creating-a-daemon-the-python-way/

Script to log stepwise execution and output of another bash script into syslog

The input arguments for this script would be another script with its input arguments. First, this script stores the stepwise execution and the output of the called bash script into a temporary file. When the called bash script finishes its execution, this script reads the temporary file and logs them into syslog. We are using a temporary file because if we pipe the output of the called script we will lose the true return value of that script.

#!/bin/bash

tmpfile=$(mktemp)
(/bin/bash -x $@ 2>&1) > $tmpfile
retval=$?
cat $tmpfile | logger -t "logger [$1]"
rm -f $$tmpfile

exit $retval