I'm going to use ftplib to open up an FTP connection to an FTP server provided by the user.  The client will be sending FTP commands to my django server via Ajax, which will then be forwarded to the FTP server the user provided. However, I'd like to not have to create a new FTP server connection every time the client sends an FTP command. In other words, I want to keep the FTP connection alive between requests by the client.
How would I do this? Would some sort of comet implementation be best? I was initially planning to use WebSockets until I discovered my host won't allow it. =\
You'll need to use a persistent connection framework as what you're trying to achieve really isn't what HTTP was meant for (in the sense that HTTP commands are stateless and independent), and thus not what Django is built for. There are a number of options, but since it seems you are in a restricted environment you'll need to do some research to determine what's best.
How to maintain server-initiated FTP connection between client requests in Python/Django?