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Shubham Singh
Shubham Singh

Posted on • Edited on

Flask Web-App Setup Using WSGI and Apache or httpd on Debian and fedora based servers

[1] Installing Dependence

Debian 

sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-wsgi python-dev
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pip3 install virtualenv
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Fedora 

sudo dnf install python-dev python3-pip mod_wsgi
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pip3 install virtualenv
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[2] Setting up the File System 

mkdir /var/www/webapp
mkdir /var/www/webapp/logs
mkdir /var/www/webapp/static
touch app.py && touch webapp.wsgi
cd /var/www/webapp
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virtualenv venv
source venv/bin/activate
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pip install flask
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app.py content

from flask import Flask

app = Flask(__name__)

@app.route('/')
def hello():
    return 'Hello, World!'

if __name__ == "__main__":
    app.run()
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webapp.wsgi content

#!/usr/bin/python
import sys
import logging

activate_this = "/var/www/webapp/venv/bin/activate_this.py"
logging.basicConfig(stream=sys.stderr)
sys.path.insert(0, '/var/www/web-app/webapp')

with open(activate_this) as file_:
    exec(file_.read(), dict(__file__=activate_this))

from app import app as application
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[3] Setting up httpd

Fedora

In /etc/httpd/conf.d/ create a new config file of any name flaskwebapp.conf

<VirtualHost *:80>

    ServerName <you_server_ip>

    ServerAdmin <email>

    WSGIDaemonProcess <webapp> user=apache group=apache threads=5
    WSGIScriptAlias / /var/www/webapp/webapp.wsgi

    <Directory /var/www/webapp/>
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all
    </Directory>

    #FOR FLASK STATIC FOLDER

    Alias /static /var/www/web-app/webapp/static

    <Directory /var/www/webapp/static/>
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all
    </Directory>

</VirtualHost>
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Debian

for Debian base system running apache2, create .conf in /etc/apache2/sites-available/FlaskApp

.conf content

<VirtualHost *:80>

    ServerName <you_server_ip>

    ServerAdmin <email>

    WSGIDaemonProcess <webapp> user=apache group=apache threads=5
    WSGIScriptAlias / /var/www/webapp/webapp.wsgi

    <Directory /var/www/webapp/>
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all
    </Directory>

    #FOR FLASK STATIC FOLDER

    Alias /static /var/www/web-app/webapp/static

    <Directory /var/www/webapp/static/>
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all
    </Directory>

</VirtualHost>
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after creating the .conf run this sudo a2ensite <naem_of_the_conf_without_.conf>

[4] changing context's for Fedora

For project folder

cd /var/www
semanage fcontext -a -t httpd_sys_content_t './webapp(/.*)?'
restorecon -vvRF ./webapp
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For the WSGI script

cd /var/www
semanage fcontext -a -t httpd_sys_script_exec_t './webapp/webapp.wsgi'
restorecon -vvRF ./webapp/webapp.wsgi
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To check context

ls -ldZ <file_or_dir>
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[5] Refresh the server 

sudo systemctl stop httpd
sudo systemctl start httpd
sudo systemctl enable httpd
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To check the Status

sudo systemctl status httpd
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Top comments (1)

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lamri_abdellahramdane_15 profile image
Lamri Abdellah Ramdane •

This is a great and very detailed guide on setting up a Flask web app with Apache. It highlights all the manual steps required to get an application running, from installing dependencies to configuring virtual hosts. For developers who want to avoid this kind of manual setup and get a complete, pre-configured local development environment, Servbay is an excellent tool that simplifies the entire process.