Sometimes creating files and separate processes are all that's needed. Write the settings into a config file with the web process and read them from the file with the sync process. Then create a second file at the start of the process and delete it once the process is complete. Lastly run a procedure before the file creation to insure it doesn't exist. If it does check the creation time. If it's older than (however long the process should take plus a pad.) then killall on the process, notify of the problem and procede on.
dtec -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
