你应该使用python-daemon库，它会处理所有的事情。

从PyPI:库实现一个行为良好的Unix守护进程。

首先，仔细研究邮件别名。邮件别名将在邮件系统内完成此任务，而无需您在守护进程或服务或任何类似的东西上瞎忙活。

您可以编写一个简单的脚本，每次将邮件消息发送到特定邮箱时，sendmail都会执行该脚本。

参见http://www.feep.net/sendmail/tutorial/intro/aliases.html

如果您真的想编写一个不必要的复杂服务器，您可以这样做。

nohup python myscript.py &

这就够了。您的脚本只是循环和休眠。

import time
def do_the_work():
    # one round of polling -- checking email, whatever.
while True:
    time.sleep( 600 ) # 10 min.
    try:
        do_the_work()
    except:
        pass

你有两个选择。

Make a proper cron job that calls your script. Cron is a common name for a GNU/Linux daemon that periodically launches scripts according to a schedule you set. You add your script into a crontab or place a symlink to it into a special directory and the daemon handles the job of launching it in the background. You can read more at Wikipedia. There is a variety of different cron daemons, but your GNU/Linux system should have it already installed. Use some kind of python approach (a library, for example) for your script to be able to daemonize itself. Yes, it will require a simple event loop (where your events are timer triggering, possibly, provided by sleep function).

我不建议你选择2。，因为您实际上是在重复cron功能。Linux系统范例是让多个简单工具交互并解决您的问题。除非有其他原因需要创建守护进程(除了定期触发之外)，否则选择其他方法。

此外，如果你使用daemonize进行循环并且发生了崩溃，那么没有人会在那之后检查邮件(正如Ivan Nevostruev在回答的评论中指出的那样)。而如果脚本作为cron作业添加，它将再次触发。

我推荐这个解决方案。您需要继承和重写方法运行。

import sys
import os
from signal import SIGTERM
from abc import ABCMeta, abstractmethod



class Daemon(object):
    __metaclass__ = ABCMeta


    def __init__(self, pidfile):
        self._pidfile = pidfile


    @abstractmethod
    def run(self):
        pass


    def _daemonize(self):
        # decouple threads
        pid = os.fork()

        # stop first thread
        if pid > 0:
            sys.exit(0)

        # write pid into a pidfile
        with open(self._pidfile, 'w') as f:
            print >> f, os.getpid()


    def start(self):
        # if daemon is started throw an error
        if os.path.exists(self._pidfile):
            raise Exception("Daemon is already started")

        # create and switch to daemon thread
        self._daemonize()

        # run the body of the daemon
        self.run()


    def stop(self):
        # check the pidfile existing
        if os.path.exists(self._pidfile):
            # read pid from the file
            with open(self._pidfile, 'r') as f:
                pid = int(f.read().strip())

            # remove the pidfile
            os.remove(self._pidfile)

            # kill daemon
            os.kill(pid, SIGTERM)

        else:
            raise Exception("Daemon is not started")


    def restart(self):
        self.stop()
        self.start()

这是一个很好的类，从这里采取:

#!/usr/bin/env python

import sys, os, time, atexit
from signal import SIGTERM

class Daemon:
        """
        A generic daemon class.

        Usage: subclass the Daemon class and override the run() method
        """
        def __init__(self, pidfile, stdin='/dev/null', stdout='/dev/null', stderr='/dev/null'):
                self.stdin = stdin
                self.stdout = stdout
                self.stderr = stderr
                self.pidfile = pidfile

        def daemonize(self):
                """
                do the UNIX double-fork magic, see Stevens' "Advanced
                Programming in the UNIX Environment" for details (ISBN 0201563177)
                http://www.erlenstar.demon.co.uk/unix/faq_2.html#SEC16
                """
                try:
                        pid = os.fork()
                        if pid > 0:
                                # exit first parent
                                sys.exit(0)
                except OSError, e:
                        sys.stderr.write("fork #1 failed: %d (%s)\n" % (e.errno, e.strerror))
                        sys.exit(1)

                # decouple from parent environment
                os.chdir("/")
                os.setsid()
                os.umask(0)

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

                # redirect standard file descriptors
                sys.stdout.flush()
                sys.stderr.flush()
                si = file(self.stdin, 'r')
                so = file(self.stdout, 'a+')
                se = file(self.stderr, 'a+', 0)
                os.dup2(si.fileno(), sys.stdin.fileno())
                os.dup2(so.fileno(), sys.stdout.fileno())
                os.dup2(se.fileno(), sys.stderr.fileno())

                # write pidfile
                atexit.register(self.delpid)
                pid = str(os.getpid())
                file(self.pidfile,'w+').write("%s\n" % pid)

        def delpid(self):
                os.remove(self.pidfile)

        def start(self):
                """
                Start the daemon
                """
                # Check for a pidfile to see if the daemon already runs
                try:
                        pf = file(self.pidfile,'r')
                        pid = int(pf.read().strip())
                        pf.close()
                except IOError:
                        pid = None

                if pid:
                        message = "pidfile %s already exist. Daemon already running?\n"
                        sys.stderr.write(message % self.pidfile)
                        sys.exit(1)

                # Start the daemon
                self.daemonize()
                self.run()

        def stop(self):
                """
                Stop the daemon
                """
                # Get the pid from the pidfile
                try:
                        pf = file(self.pidfile,'r')
                        pid = int(pf.read().strip())
                        pf.close()
                except IOError:
                        pid = None

                if not pid:
                        message = "pidfile %s does not exist. Daemon not running?\n"
                        sys.stderr.write(message % self.pidfile)
                        return # not an error in a restart

                # Try killing the daemon process       
                try:
                        while 1:
                                os.kill(pid, SIGTERM)
                                time.sleep(0.1)
                except OSError, err:
                        err = str(err)
                        if err.find("No such process") > 0:
                                if os.path.exists(self.pidfile):
                                        os.remove(self.pidfile)
                        else:
                                print str(err)
                                sys.exit(1)

        def restart(self):
                """
                Restart the daemon
                """
                self.stop()
                self.start()

        def run(self):
                """
                You should override this method when you subclass Daemon. It will be called after the process has been
                daemonized by start() or restart().
                """

您还可以使用shell脚本使python脚本作为服务运行。首先创建一个shell脚本，像这样运行python脚本(scriptname任意名称)

#!/bin/sh
script='/home/.. full path to script'
/usr/bin/python $script &

现在在/etc/init.d/scriptname中创建一个文件

#! /bin/sh

PATH=/bin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin
DAEMON=/home/.. path to shell script scriptname created to run python script
PIDFILE=/var/run/scriptname.pid

test -x $DAEMON || exit 0

. /lib/lsb/init-functions

case "$1" in
  start)
     log_daemon_msg "Starting feedparser"
     start_daemon -p $PIDFILE $DAEMON
     log_end_msg $?
   ;;
  stop)
     log_daemon_msg "Stopping feedparser"
     killproc -p $PIDFILE $DAEMON
     PID=`ps x |grep feed | head -1 | awk '{print $1}'`
     kill -9 $PID       
     log_end_msg $?
   ;;
  force-reload|restart)
     $0 stop
     $0 start
   ;;
  status)
     status_of_proc -p $PIDFILE $DAEMON atd && exit 0 || exit $?
   ;;
 *)
   echo "Usage: /etc/init.d/atd {start|stop|restart|force-reload|status}"
   exit 1
  ;;
esac

exit 0

现在可以使用/etc/init.命令启动和停止python脚本D /scriptname start or stop。