2

I'm running a BaseHTTPServer, passed through ThreadedHTTPServer so I get threading.

server = ThreadedHTTPServer(('', int(port)), MainHandler)

Next I fork according to the info here: Daemonizing python's BaseHTTPServer

Then I do:

server.serve_forever()

What I am trying to do is have the same Python script run a Tornado WebSocket server as well, I tried creating the second handler and in my main creating the second server similar to above, but then the serve_forever() blocks (I assume) and I can't start the Tornado WebSocket server.

I had considered using Tornado to serve my general web stuff too but performance was aweful and unusable, so I'd prefer to run it alongside, unless there is a simpler alternative to adding WebSockets to the BaseHTTPServer.

Can anyone offer a solution please?

2
  • "performance was aweful and unusable"? It should be pretty close; how did you test it? Regardless, nginx should be the fastest way to serve your "general web stuff". Commented Jun 10, 2013 at 1:48
  • I tried serving up a simple static html page, and it took many seconds to load. I think, in retrospect, it was my erroneous setup, and not a fault of Tornado. Commented Jun 10, 2013 at 12:21

1 Answer 1

3

Yes, serve_forever() blocks it all. You can use handle_request to serve one request at a time. To assure it won't block you have to set timeout. To run it periodically you can use tornado.ioloop.PeriodicCallback. Example:

#!/usr/bin/python
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

from BaseHTTPServer import HTTPServer, BaseHTTPRequestHandler
from SocketServer import ThreadingMixIn
import threading

import tornado.httpserver
import tornado.ioloop
import tornado.options
import tornado.web

from tornado.options import define, options
define("port", default=8000, help="run on the given port", type=int)

class Handler(BaseHTTPRequestHandler):  
    def do_GET(self):
        self.send_response(200)
        self.end_headers()
        message =  threading.currentThread().getName()
        self.wfile.write(message)
        self.wfile.write('\n')
        return

class ThreadedHTTPServer(ThreadingMixIn, HTTPServer):
    """Handle requests in a separate thread."""

class IndexHandler(tornado.web.RequestHandler):
    def get(self):
        greeting = self.get_argument('greeting', 'Hello')
        self.write(greeting + ', friendly user!\n')

if __name__ == '__main__':
    # create Tornado Server
    tornado.options.parse_command_line()
    app = tornado.web.Application(handlers=[(r"/", IndexHandler)])
    http_server = tornado.httpserver.HTTPServer(app)
    http_server.listen(options.port)

    # create BaseHTTPServer
    server = ThreadedHTTPServer(('localhost', 8080), Handler)
    server.timeout = 0.01 

    tornado.ioloop.PeriodicCallback(server.handle_request, 100).start() # every 100 milliseconds
    tornado.ioloop.IOLoop.instance().start()

Running:

$ curl http://localhost:8080/
Thread-1
$ curl http://localhost:8080/
Thread-2
$ curl http://localhost:8000/
Hello, friendly user!
$ curl http://localhost:8080/
Thread-3
$ curl http://localhost:8000/
Hello, friendly user!
$ curl http://localhost:8080/
Thread-4
$ curl http://localhost:8000/
Hello, friendly user!
$ curl http://localhost:8000/
Hello, friendly user!

I used here timeout attribute to set timeout. I'm not sure if it's proper way to do it. Other method: http://code.activestate.com/recipes/499376/

Another solution: running every server in its own thread:

#!/usr/bin/python
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

from BaseHTTPServer import HTTPServer, BaseHTTPRequestHandler
from SocketServer import ThreadingMixIn
import threading

import tornado.httpserver
import tornado.ioloop
import tornado.options
import tornado.web

from tornado.options import define, options
define("port", default=8000, help="run on the given port", type=int)

class Handler(BaseHTTPRequestHandler):  
    def do_GET(self):
        self.send_response(200)
        self.end_headers()
        message =  threading.currentThread().getName()
        self.wfile.write(message)
        self.wfile.write('\n')
        return

class ThreadedHTTPServer(ThreadingMixIn, HTTPServer):
    """Handle requests in a separate thread."""

class IndexHandler(tornado.web.RequestHandler):
    def get(self):
        greeting = self.get_argument('greeting', 'Hello')
        self.write(greeting + ', friendly user!\n')

def run_tornado():
    tornado.options.parse_command_line()
    app = tornado.web.Application(handlers=[(r"/", IndexHandler)])
    http_server = tornado.httpserver.HTTPServer(app)
    http_server.listen(options.port)
    tornado.ioloop.IOLoop.instance().start()

def run_base_http_server():
    server = ThreadedHTTPServer(('localhost', 8080), Handler)
    server.serve_forever()

if __name__ == '__main__':
    threading.Thread(target=run_tornado).start()
    threading.Thread(target=run_base_http_server).start()
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1 Comment

Wow, thank you for the excellently detailed response and for giving me options too. I'll run them both and see which works best, but certainly going to accept this answer.

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