Check if a process is running, kill it or start it

gistfile1.py

# Check if a process is running or not

def is_proc_running(proc_name):
	command = 'ps aux | grep -v grep | grep -v /bin/sh | grep ' + proc_name
	output = subprocess.Popen(command, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, shell=True).communicate()[0]
	if len(output)==0:
		return False
	else:
		return True
		
# Run a process, printing all of its output to stdout

def run_proc(proc_path):
	command = proc_path + ' 2>&1 &'
	output = subprocess.Popen(command, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, shell=True).pid
	return output

# Force kill a process by name

def killproc(proc_name):
  
  # Get the pid of the command
  
	command = 'ps aux | grep -v grep | grep -v /bin/sh | grep ' + proc_name
	output = subprocess.Popen(command, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, shell=True).communicate()[0]
	
	if len(output)==0:
		print "Could not kill %s: No process found" % proc_name
		return False
	else:
	  
	  # Send it a kill signal
	  
		sep = re.compile('[\s]+')
		output_parts = sep.split(output)
		print "Killing %s with pid %s" % (procname,output_parts[1])
		output = subprocess.Popen('kill -s 9 ' + output_parts[1], stdout=subprocess.PIPE, shell=True).communicate()[0]
		print output
		return True