how to make a python windows service know it's own identity

[Chris Curvey]

On Feb 1, 2:10 pm, Larry Bates <larry.ba... at websafe.com> wrote:
> Chris Curvey wrote:
> > Hi all,
>
> > I have used the win32com libraries to set up a service called
> > MyService under Windows.  So far, so good.  Now I need to run multiple
> > copies of the service on the same machine.  I also have that working.
> > For monitoring and logging, I'd like each instance of the service to
> > know it's own identity (MyService1, MyService2, etc.)
>
> > But I can't quite seem to grasp how to do this.  In the code below,
> > the command line parameter "-i" gives the service an identity, but how
> > do I get the service to understand it's identity when it is started?
>
> > Many thanks!
>
> > class MyService(win32serviceutil.ServiceFramework):
> >     """NT Service."""
>
> >     _svc_name_ = "MyService"
> >     _svc_display_name_ = "My Service"
>
> >     _id_ = ''
>
> >     def SvcDoRun(self):
> >         provider = MyServiceClass(identifier=self._id_)
> >         provider.start()
>
> >         # now, block until our event is set...
> >         win32event.WaitForSingleObject(self.stop_event,
> > win32event.INFINITE)
>
> >    # __init__ and SvcStop snipped
>
> > ###########################################################################
> > if __name__ == '__main__':
> >     import optparse
> >     parser = optparse.OptionParser()
> >     parser.add_option("-i", "--identifier", dest="identifier")
> >     (opts, args) = parser.parse_args()
> >     if opts.number is not None:
> >         MyService._svc_name_ += opts.identifier
> >         MyService._svc_display_name_ += opts.identifier
> >         MyService._provider_id_ = opts.identifier
>
> >     win32serviceutil.HandleCommandLine(MyService,
> > customInstallOptions="i:")
>
> What is your use case for this?  Why not make a single server
> process multiple providers (store them in a list or other
> container)?
>
> -Larry Bates

The use case is that I have a queue of jobs that need to run.  My
service connects to a central "distributor" server, which hands out
jobs to complete.  I'd like to be able to run multiple copies of the
distributed service so that I can make the most use of each machine
where they run.  (I'm not certain of the thread safety of some of the
libraries I'm using, so I'm leery of going the multi-threaded route)
Anyway, when my service gets a job to process, I'd like to know which
copy of the service is working on which job.  So I want my log
messages to look like this:

Job 123:  Host: alpha  Service: MyService A
Job 124:  Host: alpha  Service: MyService B
Job 124:  Host: beta  Service: MyService C

Is that clear, or have I muddied the waters?