keep_alive.sh

#!/bin/sh

# start with
# cd /path/to/your/django/project
# sudo keep_alive.sh start projectname portnumber

# in another window
# sudo keep_alive.sh restart/stop projectname

# or kick the system with:
# touch /path/to/keep_alive/keep_alive_cache/projectname.restart
# in Textmate I automatically run this on saving each pythhon file

# and if it all goes wrong:
# sudo kill `ps -e | grep keep | grep -v "grep keep" | awk '{print $1}'`

# you can also uncomment the stuff in the watcher if you want it to restart when python files change

COMMAND=$1
MYAPP=$2
PORT=$3

SITE_HOME="`pwd`"

cd "`dirname $0`"
SCRIPT_HOME="`pwd`"

CACHE="$SCRIPT_HOME/keep_alive_cache"
PIDFILE="$CACHE/${MYAPP}.pid"
RUNFILE="$CACHE/${MYAPP}.run"
RESTARTFILE="$CACHE/${MYAPP}.restart"


function failure () {
	STATUS=$?;
	echo; echo "Failed $1 (exit code ${STATUS}).";
	exit ${STATUS};
}

function start_server () {
	python "$SITE_HOME/manage.py" runfcgi host=127.0.0.1 method=threaded port=$PORT pidfile=$PIDFILE daemonize=false
}

function restart_server () {
	kill `cat $PIDFILE` || failure "restarting fcgi"
	rm $PIDFILE
}

function stop_server () {
	# stop django
	rm $RUNFILE
	restart_server
}

case "$COMMAND" in
	start)
		# make sure we have somewhere to store our files
		if [ ! -d $CACHE ] ; then
			mkdir $CACHE
		fi
		
		echo "Starting watcher"
		./keep_alive.sh watch $MYAPP &
		watcher_pid=$!

		echo "Starting fcgi"
		touch $RUNFILE
		while [ -e $RUNFILE ]; do
			echo "Restarting fcgi: "
			start_server
		done
		echo "fcgi stopped"
		
		kill $watcher_pid
		echo "watcher stopped"
		;;
	stop)
		printf "Stopping fcgi: "
		stop_server
		echo "Done."
		;;
	restart)
		echo "Restarting fcgi: "
		restart_server
		echo "Done."
		;;
	watch)
		echo "Watching code: "
		while true; do
			if [ -e $RESTARTFILE ] ; then
				rm $RESTARTFILE
				./keep_alive.sh restart $MYAPP
			# else
			#		found="`find $SITE_HOME -iname "*.py" -mtime -2s`"
			#		if [ -n "$found" ] ; then
			#			echo "changed : $found"
			#			./keep_alive.sh restart $MYAPP
			#		fi
			fi
			sleep 1;
		done
		;;
	*)
		echo "Usage: $0 {start|stop|restart|watch}"
		;;
esac

exit 0

Simple bash script to allow you to run django in fastcgi mode on development. It always keeps a copy of django running in the foreground so that you can drop into the debugger during runtime.