How to attach debugger to a python subproccess?

I've been searching for a simple to solution for this problem and came up with this:

import sys
import pdb

class ForkedPdb(pdb.Pdb):
    """A Pdb subclass that may be used
    from a forked multiprocessing child

    """
    def interaction(self, *args, **kwargs):
        _stdin = sys.stdin
        try:
            sys.stdin = open('/dev/stdin')
            pdb.Pdb.interaction(self, *args, **kwargs)
        finally:
            sys.stdin = _stdin

Use it the same way you might use the classic Pdb:

ForkedPdb().set_trace()

This is an elaboration of Romuald's answer which restores the original stdin using its file descriptor. This keeps readline working inside the debugger. Besides, pdb special management of KeyboardInterrupt is disabled, in order it not to interfere with multiprocessing sigint handler.

class ForkablePdb(pdb.Pdb):

    _original_stdin_fd = sys.stdin.fileno()
    _original_stdin = None

    def __init__(self):
        pdb.Pdb.__init__(self, nosigint=True)

    def _cmdloop(self):
        current_stdin = sys.stdin
        try:
            if not self._original_stdin:
                self._original_stdin = os.fdopen(self._original_stdin_fd)
            sys.stdin = self._original_stdin
            self.cmdloop()
        finally:
            sys.stdin = current_stdin

Winpdb is pretty much the definition of a smarter Python debugger. It explicitly supports going down a fork, not sure it works nicely with multiprocessing.Process() but it's worth a try.

For a list of candidates to check for support of your use case, see the list of Python Debuggers in the wiki.