How to implement a multithread echo server

The example implement a multithread echo server. Every incoming request is handed off to a worker thread that will process the request.

import socket
import thread

def handle(client_socket, address):
 while True:
  data = client_socket.recv(512)
  if data.startswith("exit"): # if data start with "exit"
   client_socket.close() # close the connection with the client
   break
  client_socket.send(data) # echo the received string

# opening the port 1075
server = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
server.bind((socket.gethostname(),1075))
server.listen(2)

while True: # listen for incoming connections
 client_socket, address = server.accept()
 print "request from the ip",address[0]
 # spawn a new thread that run the function handle()
 thread.start_new_thread(handle, (client_socket, address)) 

And now we can use telnet to communicate with the server application:

$ telnet localhost 1075
Trying ::1...
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to localhost.
Escape character is '^]'.
hi
hi
echo this!
echo this!
exit
Connection closed by foreign host.