Run a program from python, and have it continue to run after the script is killed

The child process receives the same SIGINT as your parent process because it's in the same process group. You can put the child in its own process group by calling os.setpgrp() in the child process. Popen's preexec_fn argument is useful here:

subprocess.Popen(['nohup', 'my_command'],
                 stdout=open('/dev/null', 'w'),
                 stderr=open('logfile.log', 'a'),
                 preexec_fn=os.setpgrp
                 )

(preexec_fn is for un*x-oids only. There appears to be a rough equivalent for Windows "creationflags=CREATE_NEW_PROCESS_GROUP", but I've never tried it.)

The usual way to do this on Unix systems is to fork and exit if you're the parent. Have a look at os.fork() .

Here's a function that does the job:

def spawnDaemon(func):
    # do the UNIX double-fork magic, see Stevens' "Advanced 
    # Programming in the UNIX Environment" for details (ISBN 0201563177)
    try: 
        pid = os.fork() 
        if pid > 0:
            # parent process, return and keep running
            return
    except OSError, e:
        print >>sys.stderr, "fork #1 failed: %d (%s)" % (e.errno, e.strerror) 
        sys.exit(1)

    os.setsid()

    # do second fork
    try: 
        pid = os.fork() 
        if pid > 0:
            # exit from second parent
            sys.exit(0) 
    except OSError, e: 
        print >>sys.stderr, "fork #2 failed: %d (%s)" % (e.errno, e.strerror) 
        sys.exit(1)

    # do stuff
    func()

    # all done
    os._exit(os.EX_OK)

After an hour of various attempts, this works for me:

process = subprocess.Popen(["someprocess"], creationflags=subprocess.DETACHED_PROCESS | subprocess.CREATE_NEW_PROCESS_GROUP)

It's solution for windows.