running a django app on apache with SSL: pexpect spawn/expect doesn't work

I'm running a django app on apache 2.2 with SSL enabled. When I don't have the SSL enabled, all is well. But with security, there probably are some restrictions on how an os can fork off a process, etc. I'm not aware of those at all.

OS used: Solaris (not sure if it matters, but it could) Django v1.4, Apache 2.2, Python 2.7

An outline of what I'm doing in one of my views:

def run_step(request, action):
    if (action == "action1"):
        p = subprocess.Popen("command1", 
            shell=True, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.STDOUT)
    elif (action == "action2"):
       password = mylib.getpasswd()
       ## Method 1: with pexpect
       command = pexpect.spawn('su root -c \' command2 \'')
       command.expect('[pP]assword*')
       command.sendline(password)

       ## Method 2: with subprocess and a simple command
       #command = subprocess.Popen('ls > log.file',
           shell=True,stdout=subprocess.PIPE,stderr=subprocess.STDOUT)

       ## Method 3: with subprocess stdin PIPE 
       #command = subprocess.Popen('command2', shell=True,
         stdout=subprocess.PIPE,stderr=subprocess.STDOUT,stdin=subprocess.PIPE)
       #command.stdin.write(password)
       #command.communicate()

       ## I tried with shell = False, 
       ## with stdin.flush() and communicate(password) too.

The command for 'Action1' gets executed very well. But the problem with those which need interaction like that of 'Action2'. I tried three different methods:

Method1: sent it using pexpect as usual but it fails - the command doesn't get executed at all.
Method2: tried a subprocess call wihtout an interaction - works.
Method3: tried a subprocess call with a stdin pipe to try interaction but failed again.

I'm not sure how to go about this now. Any help would be very highly appreciated.

Solution

Here is what worked for me:

Spawned the pexpect call as a separate thread using the 'threading' module in python, and then sent the password using a sendline.

import threading

command = 'ls -l' #some_command
t = threading.Thread(target=some_function,args=(command,))
t.start()


def some_function(command):
    some_process = pexpect.spawn(command)
    some_process.expect('[pP]assword*')
    some_process.sendline(some_password)
    some_process.expect(pexpect.EOF,timeout=1000)

I don't still understand why the pexpect module, as is, did not work on the main thread. Would still appreciate any answers, but I'm going with this solution for now.