Develop Reference

Is there a way to stop and restart a self hosted Python script using Github Actions?

I have a project in which one of the tests consists of running a process indefinitely in order to collect data on the program execution.
It's a Python script that runs locally on a Linux machine, but I'd like for other people in my team to have access to it as well because there are specific moments where the process needs to be restarted.
Is there a way to set up a workflow on this machine that when dispatched, stops and restarts the process?

You can execute commands on your Linux host via GH Actions and SSH. Take a look at this action.

Best practice for an infinite loop Python script that runs on Windows as a Service

I have a python script that reads data from an OPCDA server and then push it to InfluxDB.
So basically it connects to the OPCDA using the OpenOPC library and to InfluxDB using the InfluxDB Python client and then starts an infinite while loop that runs every 5 seconds to read and push data to the database.
I have installed the script as a Service using NSSM. What is the best practice to ensure that the script is running 24/7 ? How to avoid crashes ?
Should i daemonize the script ?
Thank you in advance,
Bnjroos

I suggest at least to add logging at the script level. You could also use custom Exit Codes from python so NSSM knows to report failure. Your failure would probably be when connecting to your services so, i.e. netowrk down or something so you could write custom exceptions for NSSM to restart. If it's running every 5 seconds you would probably know very soon.
Ensuring availability and avoiding crashes is about your code more than infrastructure, hence the above recommendations.
I believe using NSSM (for scheduling and such) is better than daemonizing, since you're basically adding functionality of NSSM in your script and potentially adding more code that may fail.

Is it Possible to Run a Python Code Forever?

I have coded a Python Script for Twitter Automation using Tweepy. Now, when i run on my own Linux Machine as python file.py The file runs successfully and it keeps on running because i have specified repeated Tasks inside the Script and I also don't want to stop the script either. But as it is on my Local Machine, the script might get stopped when my Internet Connection is off or at Night. So i couldn't keep running the Script Whole day on my PC..
So is there any way or website or Method where i could deploy my Script and make it Execute forever there ? I have heard about CRON JOBS before in Cpanel which can Help repeated Tasks but here in my case i want to keep running my Script on the Machine till i don't close the script .
Are their any such solutions. Because most of twitter bots i see are running forever, meaning their Script is getting executed somewhere 24x7 . This is what i want to know, How is that Task possible?

As mentioned by Jon and Vincent, it's better to run the code from a cloud service. But either way, I think what you're looking for is what to put into the terminal to run the code even after you close the terminal. This is what worked for me:
nohup python code.py &

You can add a systemd .service file, which can have the added benefit of:
logging (compressed logs at a central place, or over network to a log server)
disallowing access to /tmp and /home-directories
restarting the service if it fails
starting the service at boot
setting capabilities (ref setcap/getcap), disallowing file access if the process only needs network access, for instance

How to launch a python process in Windows SYSTEM account

I am writing a test application in python and to test some particular scenario, I need to launch my python child process in windows SYSTEM account.
I can do this by creating exe from my python script and then use that while creating windows service. But this option is not good for me because in future if I change anything in my python script then I have to regenerate exe every-time.
If anybody have any better idea about how to do this then please let me know.
Bishnu

Create a service that runs permanently.
Arrange for the service to have an IPC communications channel.
From your desktop python code, send messages to the service down that IPC channel. These messages specify the action to be taken by the service.
The service receives the message and performs the action. That is, executes the python code that the sender requests.
This allows you to decouple the service from the python code that it executes and so allows you to avoid repeatedly re-installing a service.
If you don't want to run in a service then you can use CreateProcessAsUser or similar APIs.

You could also use Windows Task Scheduler, it can run a script under SYSTEM account and its interface is easy (if you do not test too often :-) )

To run a file with system account privileges, you can use psexec. Download this :
Sysinternals
Then you may use :
os.system
or
subprocess.call
And execute:
PSEXEC -i -s -d CMD "path\to\yourfile"

Just came across this one - I know, a bit late, but anyway. I encountered a similar situation and I solved it with NSSM (Non_Sucking Service Manager). Basically, this program enables you to start any executable as a service, which I did with my Python executable and gave it the Python script I was testing on as a parameter.
So I could run the service and edit the script however I wanted. I just had to restart the service when I made any changes to the script.
One point for productive environments: Try not to rely on third party software like NSSM. You could also achieve this with the standard SC command (see this answer) or PowerShell (see this MS doc).

Cannot access Python server running as Windows service

I have written a Python TCP/IP server for internal use, using win32serviceutil/py2exe to create a Windows service.
I installed it on a computer running Windows XP Pro SP3. However, I can't connect to it when it's running as a service. I can confirm that it's binding to the address/port, because I get a conflict when I try to bind to that address/port with another application. Further, I have checked the Windows Firewall settings and have added appropriate exceptions. If I run the server as a simple console application, everything works as expected. However, when I run it as a service, it doesn't work.
I vaguely remember running into this problem before, but for the life of me can't remember any of the details.
Suggestions, anyone?

Possibly the program may be terminated just after initialization. Please check whether it is continuously listening to the requests.
netstat -an |find /i "listening"
And analyze the command line parsed to the programs. You may use procexp to do that.

First of all, whenever you implement a Windows service, be sure to add proper logging.
My worker threads were terminating because of the exception, "The socket operation could not complete without blocking."
The solution was to simply call sock.setblocking(1) after accepting the connection.

Check to see that the service is running under the Nertwork Service account and not the Local System account. The later doesn't have network access and is the default user to run services under. You can check this by going to the services app under administrative tool in the start menu and looking for your service. If you right-click the service you can go to properties and change the user that it is run under.