In short: Is there an existing open-source Python interface for the Apache scoreboard IPC facility? I need to collect statistics from a running server WITHOUT using the "mod_status" HTTP interface, and I'd like to avoid Perl if possible.
Some background: As I understand it, the Apache web server uses a functionality called the "scoreboard" to handle inter-process coordination. This may be purely in-memory, or it may be file-backed shared memory. (PLEASE correct me if that's a mis-statement!)
Among other uses, "mod_status" lets you query a special path on a properly-configured server, receiving back a dynamically-generated page with a human-readable breakdown of Apache's overall functioning: uptime, request count, aggregate data transfer size, and process/thread status. (VERY useful information for monitoring perforamnce, or troubleshooting running servers that can't be shut down for debugging.)
But what if you need the Apache status, but you can't open an HTTP connection to the server? (My organization sees this case from time to time. For example, the Slowloris attack.) What are some different ways that we can get the scoreboard statistics, and is there a Python interface for any of those methods?
Note that a Perl module, Apache::Scoreboard, appears to be able to do this. But I'm not at all sure whether it can reach a local server's stats directly (shared memory, with or without a backing file), or whether it has to make a TCP connection to the localhost interface. So I'm not even sure whether this Perl module can do what we're asking. Beyond that, I'd like to avoid Perl in the solution for independent organizational reasons (no offense, Perl guys!).
Also, if people are using a completely different method to grab these statistics, I would be interested in learning about it.