apache - wsgi - python - basic example

Question

So I was advised to use wsgi instead of cgi, so I tried to set it up with following settings for a basic example, without Django:

specs:

linux Kubuntu, apache 2.4, python 3.5
apache is running, mod_wsgi installed and enabled
website files are in root/var/www/html/, I have sudo access to this folder
the python 3.5 path is usr/bin/env python3
the python script: "index.py, simplest of scripts, has been made executable
the python executable lives in root/var/www/scripts

Questions:

how do I make this function spit out it's result
what's the deal with this wsgi script? I have no need for that, I also do not want any wsgi extensions
what apache directive do I need to introduce to run a script
So where does the 'application' function live?

Really lost in this wsgi idea, some clarification might help

use Flask, Bottle, etc. Web Framework and build web page. They have built-in server so you don't need Apache at start. — furas
Have you tried accessing index.py from a browser? If so, what result do you get? — John Gordon
@furas:I like to know how the car works before I drive it :) — hewi

hewi hewi · Accepted Answer · 2017-01-24T11:39:30

so let's start with what I know and want, using the minimalistic approach:

most useful info derived from shellhacks.com and modwsgi.readthedocs.io

$ sudo apt-get install python3-distutils
$ sudo apt-get install apache2-dev
download latest mod-wsgi module package from here and extract
$ ./configure --with-python=/usr/local/bin/python3.5
$ make
$ sudo make install
$ cd etc/apache2/mods-available/
$ SUDO_EDITOR=kate sudoedit wsgi.load

LoadModule wsgi_module modules/mod_wsgi.so

$ sudo a2enmod wsgi
$ sudo service apache2 restart
place following 'spark.py' script in the document root folder of apache (which is root/var/www/html for me) using your favorite text editor (which in this case is Kate for me)
```
  $ kate /var/www/html/spark.py
```

def application(environ, start_response):
    status = '200 OK'
    output = b'Hello World!\n'
    response_headers = [('Content-type', 'text/plain'),
                  ('Content-Length', str(len(output)))]
    start_response(status, response_headers)
    return [output]

add the WSGI script alias directive to the etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf
```
$ sudo kate etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf
```

<VirtualHost *:80>
    #lots and lots of comments
    some actual directives
    like DocumentRoot /var/www/html

    # more comments
    more directives

    # and all the way at the end
    # THE ACTUAL DIRECTIVE
    WSGIScriptAlias / /var/www/html/spark.py
    <Directory /usr/lib/python3.7>
        Require all granted
    </Directory>

</VirtualHost>

$ sudo service restart apache
browse to localhost (if you are set up on the local apache server) and you should see most famous words in all programming history and man does it feel good to see those :)

Things to do: create app, point the script to that, ...

apache - wsgi - python - basic example

1 Answers