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How to let the webserver (e.g. Apache) call Python directly?

(Important) Disclaimer: I know it’s probably not a good idea, that Python is not like PHP, and that the “natural” way to do web with Python is more by using a framework like Bottle, Flask, Django (that I already use), etc. But still, just out of curiosity, I’d like to see how the following is possible.

When Apache + PHP are installed, we can access a page like http://www.example.com/index.php. Internally, Apache probably passes the request to PHP which executes code, produces a text output, which is then served by Apache.

Question: how could we do something similar in Python? i.e. by accessing http://www.example.com/index.py, Apache would call the script index.py:

print("<html><body>Hello world</body></html>")

and then Apache would serve this page to the client.

NB:

  • Calling http://www.example.com/index.py?foo=bar could even give the params to the Python script in sys.argv

  • I already did it like this: http://www.example.com/index.php:

    <?php 
$out = shell_exec("python index.py"); 
echo($out); 
?>

    which then calls the Python script and produces the output. It works, but I’d like to do it without PHP.

  • Said in another way, is there something like mod_php for Python?

Tags:

3

Answers


  1. Chosen as BEST ANSWER
    0

    I finally managed to do it thanks to the other answer:

    1. Do:

      apt-get install libapache2-mod-python

    2. Then create or open the .htaccess file in your website folder, and add

      AddHandler mod_python .py
PythonHandler mod_python.publisher

    3. Then create a file test.py:

      def index(req):
    return("<html><body>Hello world</body></html>")

    4. Now accessing www.example.com/test.py works!

    NB:

    • def index(req) is really required: using another name will make it fail.

    • I don't know why, but it's not possible to set AddHandler mod_python .py in a .htaccess, I only managed to do it globally for a <VirtualHost>. Does someone have an idea about how to do it directly in the .htaccess?

    • if mod_python is already installed but not enabled, you have to do:

      a2enmod python               
service apache2 restart

      but this is done automatically when installing libapache2-mod-python.

    • This is needed in the Apache VirtualHost's Directory: AllowOverride All, Require all granted, to allow handlers to be added directly in a .htaccess file. Without it, an alternative is to add the directives AddHandler ... directly in the VirtualHost definition.


  2. 0

    There exists a similar mod for python, but it’s not as widely used and does not seem to have been updated for a few years.

    Note: A common way of doing things is using apache/nginx as a web server, and uwsgi as an application server, with the web server redirecting to the application server for non-static content urls.

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  3. 0

    There is one more module apache can able to server python apart from mod_python which is mod_wsgi you may have tried it already if not this can be done like below.

    First install if not already installed

    sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-wsgi -y

    Create vhost

    <VirtualHost *:8081>

    #ServerName www.example.com
    #ServerAlias example.com
    ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost

    DocumentRoot /var/www/html/wsgi

    <Directory /var/www/html/wsgi>
    <IfVersion < 2.4>
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all
    </IfVersion>
    <IfVersion >= 2.4>
        Require all granted
    </IfVersion>
    </Directory>

    WSGIScriptAlias /myapp /var/www/html/wsgi/index.py #path to file

    <Directory /var/www/html/wsgi>
    <IfVersion < 2.4>
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all
    </IfVersion>
    <IfVersion >= 2.4>
        Require all granted
    </IfVersion>
    </Directory>

</VirtualHost>

    Create index.py

    def application(environ, start_response):
    status = '200 OK'
    output = b'<h2>Hello World!</h2>'

    response_headers = [('Content-type', 'text/html'),
                        ('Content-Length', str(len(output)))]
    start_response(status, response_headers)

    return [output]
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