django using fcgi in shared hosting

Question

I'm trying to check if my host supports what is needed for my django site, so atm I'm trying to set up a basic django site. What makes this even more complicated is that I need to have another joomla page running from the same server (see below). I don't know if I'm doing something wrong (most probable) and what am I supposed to ask from the host. (I know I'm a little noob in this)

Here's what I have so far: in the /home/username/

1. library-site/ <-- django files

   • lib/
     • manage.py
     • lib/
       • settings.py
       • ...

2. public-html/

   • cgi-bin
   • folder_containing_joomla_site
   • library <-- folder_id_like_to_use_for_my_page

3. library <-- virtual_env

   • bin
   • ...

(following a guide I've symlinked the site-packages of the virtualenv to library_site/lib)

I have to say that I've tried numerous guides so it's difficult to present the entire picture but here's what I have now

in public_html/library/dispatch.fcgi

#!/home/username/library/bin/python

import sys
import os

sys.path.insert(0, "/home/username/library/bin/python")
sys.path.append('/home/username/library/lib/python2.6/site-packages')
sys.path.insert(13, "/home/username/public_html/library")

open("/home/username/public_html/library/cgi.log", "w").write("Before try")

try:
    os.environ['DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE'] = 'lib.settings'
    from django.core.servers.fastcgi import runfastcgi
    runfastcgi(method="threaded", daemonize="false")
except Exception:
    open("/home/username/public_html/library/cgi.log", "w").write(format_exc())
    raise

in public_html/library/.htaccess

AddHandler fcgid-script .fcgi
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
  RewriteBase /library/
  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
  RewriteRule ^(dispatch\.fcgi/.*)$ - [L]
  RewriteRule ^(.*)$ dispatch.fcgi/$1 [L]

Navigating like this to http://example.com/library displays the contents of the folder. Clicking on the dispatch.fcgi just displays the python code.

Running ./dispatch.fcgi from the returns the correct django output but the first four lines read

WSGIServer: missing FastCGI param REQUEST_METHOD required by WSGI!
WSGIServer: missing FastCGI param SERVER_NAME required by WSGI!
WSGIServer: missing FastCGI param SERVER_PORT required by WSGI!
WSGIServer: missing FastCGI param SERVER_PROTOCOL required by WSGI!

These all tell me that I need to ask something from the host but I have no idea what at this point.

Also, running

python ~/library_site/lib/manage.py runfcgi daemonize=false host=127.0.0.1 port=3033 maxrequests=1

as recommended here: https://twiki.cern.ch/twiki/bin/view/ITCF/DjangoGeneral does not return any problems.

Finally, starting the django server:

python manage.py runserver 0.0.0.0:8000

works fine. Can anyone please help?

Answer 1

FCGI requires a conversion layer between it and WSGI. Make sure you have flup installed and that your FCGI file is executable

Here is a guide I was able to get working some two years ago or so.

Answer 2

I now feel a little stupid as the answer was really trivial. Following this guide http://joemaller.com/1467/django-via-cgi-on-shared-hosting/ I've put the .fcgi in cgi-bin and wrote the appropriate .htaccess file in public_html and...Voila!

As a point of interest to anyone who tries this in the future, regarding the static files (which are even more of a pain), I've put them in 'public_html/library/static/' (<-- STATIC ROOT) using the absolute path and then my STATIC_URL was '/lib_files/static/'.