import os import time import cx_Oracle def do_connection(): print 'waiting to connect' con = cx_Oracle.connect(user=user, password=pw, dsn=dsn, cclass="blah", purity=cx_Oracle.ATTR_PURITY_SELF) cur = con.cursor() print 'waiting to query' cur.execute('select sysdate from dual') print cur.fetchall() cur.close() con.close() time.sleep(30) user = '*' pw = '*' dsn = '*' pids = [] for x in range(100): pid = os.fork() if not pid: do_connection() os._exit() else: pids.append(pid) for pid in pids: os.wait()