How do I kill SimpleHTTPServer from within a Python script?

Question

I am trying to use http.server to test all the links in a Python project. I can get my script to work if I start the server before running my script, and then the server stops when I close the terminal window. But I'd really like the script itself to start and stop the server.

I made a test script to simply start the server, get a page and prove the server is running, and then stop the server. I can't seem to get the pid of the server. When I try to kill the pid that this script reports after the script runs, I get a message that there is no such process; but the server is still running.

How do I get the correct pid for the server, or more generally how do I stop the server from the script?

import os
import requests
from time import sleep

# Start server, in background.
print("Starting server...")
os.system('python -m http.server &')
# Make sure server has a chance to start before making request.
sleep(1)

print "Server pid: "
os.system('echo $$')

url = 'http://localhost:8000/index.html'
print("Testing request: ", url)
r = requests.get(url)
print("Status code: ", r.status_code)

Answer 1

Here is what I am doing:

import threading

try: 
    from http.server import HTTPServer, SimpleHTTPRequestHandler # Python 3
except ImportError: 
    from SimpleHTTPServer import BaseHTTPServer
    HTTPServer = BaseHTTPServer.HTTPServer
    from SimpleHTTPServer import SimpleHTTPRequestHandler # Python 2

server = HTTPServer(('localhost', 0), SimpleHTTPRequestHandler)
thread = threading.Thread(target = server.serve_forever)
thread.daemon = True
thread.start()

def fin():
    server.shutdown()

print('server running on port {}'.format(server.server_port))

# here is your program

If you call fin in your program, then the server shuts down.

Answer 2

A slight modification to User's code above:

import threading
try: 
  from http.server import HTTPServer, BaseHTTPRequestHandler # Python 3
except ImportError: 
  import SimpleHTTPServer
  from BaseHTTPServer import HTTPServer # Python 2
  from SimpleHTTPServer import SimpleHTTPRequestHandler as BaseHTTPRequestHandler
server = HTTPServer(('localhost', 0), BaseHTTPRequestHandler)
thread = threading.Thread(target = server.serve_forever)
thread.deamon = True
def up():
  thread.start()
  print('starting server on port {}'.format(server.server_port))
def down():
  server.shutdown()
  print('stopping server on port {}'.format(server.server_port))

Answer 3

I got this to run, but I'm curious to hear how this compares to User's answer above. I came up with this after looking at the accepted answer here.

import subprocess
import requests
import os
import signal
from time import sleep

print "Starting server..."
cmd = 'python -m SimpleHTTPServer'
pro = subprocess.Popen(cmd, shell=True, preexec_fn=os.setsid)

# Make sure server has a chance to start before making request.
sleep(1)

url = 'http://localhost:8000/index.html'
print "Testing request: ", url
r = requests.get(url)
print "Status code: ", r.status_code

os.killpg(pro.pid, signal.SIGTERM)

Answer 4

My solution with browser opening:

File: http.py

import SimpleHTTPServer
import SocketServer
import threading
import webbrowser
import platform
from socket import SOL_SOCKET,SO_REUSEADDR

class HTTPServer():

    def __init__(self,port=8000,url='http://localhost'):
        self.port = port
        self.thread = None
        self.httpd = None                
        self.run = False
        self.url = url

        os = platform.system()
        if os=='Linux':
            self.browser_path = "/usr/bin/google-chrome %s"            
        elif os == 'Windows':
            self.browser_path = "C:/Program Files (x86)/Google/Chrome/Application/chrome.exe %s"   
        else:
            print("Chrome not found!")


    def start(self):        
        self.run = True     
        self.httpd = SocketServer.TCPServer(("", self.port), SimpleHTTPServer.SimpleHTTPRequestHandler)
        self.httpd.socket.setsockopt(SOL_SOCKET, SO_REUSEADDR, 1)
        self.thread = threading.Thread(target = self._serve)
        self.thread.start()
        webbrowser.get(str(self.browser_path)).open(self.url+":"+str(self.port)+"/")


    def _serve(self):        
        while self.run:
            self.httpd.handle_request()

    def stop(self):
        self.run = False
        self.httpd.server_close()

After, just run:

from http import HTTPServer

server = HTTPServer()
server.start()

raw_input("Enter to close")

server.stop()

Answer 5

This is a closure solution to the problem. Works on python 3.

import os
import threading
import webbrowser
from http.server import HTTPServer, SimpleHTTPRequestHandler


def simple_http_server(host='localhost', port=4001, path='.'):

    server = HTTPServer((host, port), SimpleHTTPRequestHandler)
    thread = threading.Thread(target=server.serve_forever)
    thread.deamon = True

    cwd = os.getcwd()

    def start():
        os.chdir(path)
        thread.start()
        webbrowser.open_new_tab('http://{}:{}'.format(host, port))
        print('starting server on port {}'.format(server.server_port))

    def stop():
        os.chdir(cwd)
        server.shutdown()
        server.socket.close()
        print('stopping server on port {}'.format(server.server_port))

    return start, stop

simple_http_server which will return start and stop functions

>>> start, stop = simple_http_server(port=4005, path='/path/to/folder')

which you can use as

>>> start()
starting server on port 4005

127.0.0.1 - - [14/Aug/2016 17:49:31] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 -

>>> stop()
stopping server on port 4005