A simple module to expose the standard sem_* functions in Linux needed for using named semaphores. To compile, run: python setup.py build This will produce a namedsem.so file; put this file somewhere on your python import path and you should be able to import it as a module called namedsem. Before actually using this in python code, it really should be wrapped in something like the threading.Semaphore class. The module simply exposes the raw C functions with very little error checking.