pyrasite-shell - Give it a pid, get a shell

You can easily drop into a shell and execute commands in a running process using the pyrasite-shell.

$ pyrasite-shell
Usage: pyrasite-shell <PID>

$ pyrasite-shell $(pgrep -f "ipython")
Pyrasite Shell 2.0beta9
Connected to 'ipython'
Python 2.7.2 (default, Oct 27 2011, 01:40:22)
[GCC 4.6.1 20111003 (Red Hat 4.6.1-10)] on linux2
>>> print(x)
foo

>>> globals()['x'] = 'bar'

Source

import os
import sys
import pyrasite


def shell():
    """Open a Python shell in a running process"""

    usage = "Usage: pyrasite-shell <PID>"
    if not len(sys.argv) == 2:
        print(usage)
        sys.exit(1)
    try:
        pid = int(sys.argv[1])
    except ValueError:
        print(usage)
        sys.exit(1)

    ipc = pyrasite.PyrasiteIPC(pid, 'ReversePythonShell',
                               timeout=os.getenv('PYRASITE_IPC_TIMEOUT') or 5)
    ipc.connect()

    print("Pyrasite Shell %s" % pyrasite.__version__)
    print("Connected to '%s'" % ipc.title)

    prompt, payload = ipc.recv().split('\n', 1)
    print(payload)

    try:
        import readline
    except ImportError:
        pass

    # py3k compat
    try:
        input_ = raw_input
    except NameError:
        input_ = input

    try:
        while True:
            try:
                input_line = input_(prompt)
            except EOFError:
                input_line = 'exit()'
                print('')
            except KeyboardInterrupt:
                input_line = 'None'
                print('')

            ipc.send(input_line)
            payload = ipc.recv()
            if payload is None:
                break
            prompt, payload = payload.split('\n', 1)
            if payload != '':
                print(payload)
    except:
        print('')
        raise
    finally:
        ipc.close()


if __name__ == '__main__':
    shell()