BasicHTTPServer, SimpleHTTPServer and concurrency

Question

I'm writing a small web server for testing purposes using python, BasicHTTPServer and SimpleHTTPServer. It looks like it's processing one request at a time. Is there any way to make it a little faster without messing around too deeply? Basicly my code looks as the following and I'd like to keep it this simple ;)

os.chdir(webroot)
httpd = BaseHTTPServer.HTTPServer(("", port), SimpleHTTPServer.SimpleHTTPRequestHandler)
print("Serving directory %s on port %i" %(webroot, port) )
try:
 httpd.serve_forever()
except KeyboardInterrupt:
 print("Server stopped.")

Answer 1

You can make your own threading or forking class with a mixin inheritance from SocketServer:

import SocketServer
import BaseHTTPServer

class ThreadingHTTPServer(SocketServer.ThreadingMixIn, BaseHTTPServer.HTTPServer):
    pass

This has its limits as it doesn't use a thread pool, is limited by the GIT, etc, but it could help a little (with relatively little effort). Remember that requests will be served simultaneously by multiple threads, so be sure to put proper locking around accesses to global/shared data (unless such data's immutable after startup) done in the course of serving a request.

This SO question covers the same ground (not particularly at length).

Answer 2

You might also look at CherryPy -- it's pretty simple, too, and has multiple request threads with no additional effort. Although your needs may be modest now, CP has a lot of nice capabilities that may benefit you in the future.

Answer 3

Depending on what your requirements are, another option might be to hook in Paste. Though, based on your example, it may be overkill. Something to keep in the toolbox.