Code for running a bottle.py app as a Windows NT Service
It may come as a shock to some, but strangely enough, Windows <> *nix. Daemonizing services works great on *nix. Not so much on Windows. The proper way to run a server is as a service. So, if you can't do something smart, do something right. Unfortunately, Windows NT Services are not a natural fit for Python web frameworks. Because of this, getting a bottle.py app to run as a Windows NT Service requires more manual processes than desired. Additionally, running as a service currently requires the use of the WSGIRefServer, which isn't as performant as some of the others.
The bottle_service.py file contains the main code for installing and running as a service. This requires some changes to be made for each bottle.py app one wants to run as a service.
- Rename the bottle_service.py to differentiate it if installing multiple services. The basename of the file will be used as the service short name.
- Change the __display_name__ and __description__ values in bottle_service.py. These correspond to the service display name and description.
- If you wish to run in a virtualenv, set the __virtualenv_directory__ to the path of that file. The service will hackishly monkeypatch its environment on startup.
- Locate the section # Import your app here and change the import accordingly.
- Set the __host__ and __port__ to desired values. Default is to bind to 0.0.0.0:8042
- Virtualenvs are hacky. The method being used is slightly unreliable and highly unnatural.
- The service only needs to be installed once. One can replace the script/module containing the app and it will be reloaded the next time the service is restarted.
Open up a command prompt as adminitrator (right->click, "Run as Administrator" ) and type:
python bottle_service.py install
I want to remove a much manual fiddling as possible. A few ideas are:
- Use the registry to store the __host__ and __port__ info.
- Create default handler to allow setting of ___host__ and __port__ if not set
- Take service name, description, etc. via the command line. Will need to deal with handling of service functions such as install as well.
- Work with py2exe or somesuch to be able to package services better