CGI deployment on Apache

Here are the simple steps needed to create and run an web.py application.

  • Install web.py and flups

  • Create the application as documented

  1.   if __name__ == "__main__":
  2.       web.run(urls, globals())

For our example, let it be named app.py, located in /www/app and we need it accessible as http://server/app/app.py.

  • Configure Apache (version 2.2 in this example)
  1.   ScriptAlias /app "/www/app/"
  2.   <Directory "/www/app/">
  3.           Options +ExecCGI +FollowSymLinks
  4.           Order allow,deny
  5.           Allow from all
  6.   </Directory>

That’s it. Your application is accessible via http://server/app/app.py/. Additional URLs handled by the application are added to the end of the URL, for examples http://server/app/app.py/myurl.

  • .htaccess configuration
  1.         Options +ExecCGI
  2.         AddHandler cgi-script .py
  3.         DirectoryIndex index.py
  4.         <IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
  5.             RewriteEngine on
  6.             RewriteBase /
  7.             RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
  8.             RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
  9.             RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/favicon.ico$
  10.             RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^(/.*)+index.py/
  11.             RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.py/$1 [PT]
  12.         </IfModule>

Here it is assumed that your application is called index.py. The above htaccess checks if some static file/directory exists failing which it routes the data to your index.py. Change the Rewrite Base to a sub-directory if needed.