Python Web Server - mod_wsgi

Question

I have been looking at setting up a web server to use Python and I have installed Apache 2.2.22 on Debian 7 Wheezy with mod_wsgi. I have gotten the initial page up and going and the Apache will display the contents of the wsgi file that I have in my directory.

However, I have been researching on how to deploy a Python application and I have to admin, I find some of it a little confusing. I am coming from a background in PHP where it is literally install what you need and you are up and running and PHP is processing the way it should be.

Is this the same with Python? I can't seem to get anything to process outside of the wsgi file that I have setup. I can't import anything from other files without the server throwing a "500" error. I have looked on Google and Bing to try to find an answer to this, but I can't seem to find anything, or don't know that what I have been looking at is the answer.

I really appreciate any help that you guys can offer.

Thanks in advance! (If I need to post any coding, I can do that, I just don't know what you guys would need, if anything, as far as coding examples for this...)

Answer 1

Python is different from PHP in that PHP executes your entire program separately for each hit to your website, whereas Python runs "worker processes" that stay resident in memory.

You need some sort of web framework to do this work for you (you could write your own, but using someone else's framework makes it much easier). Flask is an example of a light one; Django is an example of a very heavy one. Pick one and follow that framework's instructions, or look for tutorials for that framework. Since the frameworks differ, most practical documentation on handling web services with Python are focused around a framework instead of just around the language itself.

Nearly any python web framework will have a development server that you can run locally, so you don't need to worry about deploying yet. When you are ready to deploy, Apache will work, although it's usually easier and better to use Gunicorn or another python-specific webserver, and then if you need more webserver functionality, set up nginx or Apache as a reverse proxy. Apache is a very heavy application to use for nothing but wsgi functionality. You also have the option of deploying to a PaaS service like Heroku (free for development work, costs money for production applications) which will handle a lot of sysadmin work for you.

As an aside, if you're not using virtualenv to set up your Python environment, you should look into it. It will make it much easier to keep track of what you have installed, to install new packages, and to isolate an environment so you can work on multiple projects on the same computer.