I'm looking to use a local webserver to run a series of python scripts for the user. For various unavoidable reasons, the python script must run locally, not on a server. As a result, I'll be using HTML+browser as the UI, which I'm comfortable with, for the front end.
I've been looking, therefore, for a lightweight web server that can execute python scripts, sitting in the background on a machine, ideally as a Windows service. Security and extensibility are not high priorities as it's all running internally on a small network.
Should I run a native python webserver as a Windows service (in which case, how)? Or is it just as easy to install Apache onto the user's machine and run as CGI? Since this is all local, performance is not an issue either.
Or am I missing something obvious?
Don't waste a lot of time creating Windows service.
Don't waste a lot of time on Windows Apache.
Just make a Python service that responds to HTTP requests.
Look at https://docs.python.org/2/library/basehttpserver.html
https://docs.python.org/3/library/http.server.html for version 3
Python offers an HTTP server that you can extend with your server-side methods.
Look at http://docs.python.org/library/wsgiref.html
Python offers a WSGI reference implementation that makes your server easy and standards-compliant.
Also http://fragments.turtlemeat.com/pythonwebserver.php
"I'm trying to avoid making the user run python stuff from the command prompt."
I don't see how clicking a web page is any different from clicking desktop icons.
Starting a web server based on Python is relatively easy, once you have the web server. First, build the server. Later, you can make sure the server starts. Let's look at some ways.
Your user can't use a random browser to open your local page. They need a bookmark to launch "localhost:8000/myspecialserverinsteadofthedestop/" That bookmark can be a .BAT file that (1) runs the server, (2) runs firefox with the proper initial URL.
You can put the server in the user's start-this menu.
You can make your Python program a windows "service".
Best way is to make your own local server by using command prompt.
Make a new folder say Project
Make a new folder inside project & name it as "cgi-bin"(without quotes)
Paste your .py file inside the cgi-bin folder
Open cmd and change to the directory from which you want to run the server and type "python -m CGIHTTPServer"(without quotes)
Minimize the cmd window & open your browser and type "localhost:8000/cgi-bin/yourpythonfilename.py"(without quotes).
The wasiest step would be navigate to folder where your files are located and running http.server module
cd /yourapp
python3 -m http.server
the you should see something like this in console
Serving HTTP on 0.0.0.0 port 8000 (http://0.0.0.0:8000/) ...
Running a native python webserver as a windows service should be a no brainer. Check out the documentation for writing windows services (win32api, ActiveState python) in python and also the documentation for subclassing BaseHttpServer and SimpleHttpServer.
BTW: I had a similar question on stackoverflow: How to stop BaseHTTPServer.serve_forever() in a BaseHTTPRequestHandler subclass?
Basically, you subclass BaseHTTPServer (you have to anyway...) and then... but just read the accepted answer - it set me on the right track!
Related
So I want to get into React Native development and have decided Python to be my backend, but for some reason I cannot configure the Apache correctly. The only way to successfully get the result from the request is to include path to python.exe at the start of the document like so:
!C:\Users\Name\PycharmProjects\AppName\venv\Scripts\python.exe
But the problem is that the file is than executed by the Python console, and if I want to access it via mobile phone I get this error:
The server encountered an internal error and was unable to complete your request. Either the server is overloaded or there was an error in a CGI script.
So my question is:
Is there any way in which I can configure Apache to execute a file, without the requirement of the py console, so the request might be handled by devices, which doesn't have a Python console installed?
if you connect from mobile device to http://192.168.1.3/HelloWorld.py on server with CGI then code should be executed on server, not on mobile device. If CGI doesn't work then server may try to send code as normal file and then mobile mdevice ay try to run it locally but it is wrong - CGI server should run code on server.
At start I would put code in subfolder cgi-bin to run it as http://192.168.1.3/cgi-bin/HelloWorld.py because most CGI servers as default run code only in this subfolder.
On Linux script would need shebang
#!/usr/bin/env python
in first line and it should be executable
chmod a+x script.py
CGI has also some rules how to generate data which it will send to client. It may need at start extra information for HTTP protocol - and using only print("Hello World") may generate wrong data and it may have problem to send it. You should have it in any tutorial for CGI scripts. See module cgi
To run Python's code Apache needs module mod_cgi, mod_fcgi or mod_python
mod_cgi and mod_fcgi can run scripts in different languages: Python, Perl, Ruby, etc. and even Bash, PHP or C/C++/Java
Python3 has standard module http which can be used also as simple server
python3 -m http.server --cgi
and it will serve all files in folder in which you run it. And it runs files from subfolder cgi-bin/ - see doc: http
I'm having some problem making a python file run everytime the AWS server boots.
I am trying to run a python file to start a web server on Amazon Webservice EC2 server.
But I am limited to edit systemd folder and other folders such as init.d
Is there anything wrong?
Sorry I don't really understand EC2's OS, it seems a lot of methods are not working on it.
What I usually do via ssh to start my server is:
python hello.py
Can anyone tell me how to run this file automatically every time system reboots?
It depends on your linux OS but you are on the right track (init.d). This is exactly where you'd want to run arbitrary shell scripts on start up.
Here is a great HOWTO and explanation:
https://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/HighQuality-Apps-HOWTO/boot.html
and another stack overflow specific to running a python script:
Run Python script at startup in Ubuntu
if you want to share you linux OS I can be more specific.
EDIT: This may help, looks like they have some sort of launch wizard:
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/user-data.html
When you launch an instance in Amazon EC2, you have the option of
passing user data to the instance that can be used to perform common
automated configuration tasks and even run scripts after the instance
starts. You can pass two types of user data to Amazon EC2: shell
scripts and cloud-init directives. You can also pass this data into
the launch wizard as plain text, as a file (this is useful for
launching instances using the command line tools), or as
base64-encoded text (for API calls).
I am writing a test application in python and to test some particular scenario, I need to launch my python child process in windows SYSTEM account.
I can do this by creating exe from my python script and then use that while creating windows service. But this option is not good for me because in future if I change anything in my python script then I have to regenerate exe every-time.
If anybody have any better idea about how to do this then please let me know.
Bishnu
Create a service that runs permanently.
Arrange for the service to have an IPC communications channel.
From your desktop python code, send messages to the service down that IPC channel. These messages specify the action to be taken by the service.
The service receives the message and performs the action. That is, executes the python code that the sender requests.
This allows you to decouple the service from the python code that it executes and so allows you to avoid repeatedly re-installing a service.
If you don't want to run in a service then you can use CreateProcessAsUser or similar APIs.
You could also use Windows Task Scheduler, it can run a script under SYSTEM account and its interface is easy (if you do not test too often :-) )
To run a file with system account privileges, you can use psexec. Download this :
Sysinternals
Then you may use :
os.system
or
subprocess.call
And execute:
PSEXEC -i -s -d CMD "path\to\yourfile"
Just came across this one - I know, a bit late, but anyway. I encountered a similar situation and I solved it with NSSM (Non_Sucking Service Manager). Basically, this program enables you to start any executable as a service, which I did with my Python executable and gave it the Python script I was testing on as a parameter.
So I could run the service and edit the script however I wanted. I just had to restart the service when I made any changes to the script.
One point for productive environments: Try not to rely on third party software like NSSM. You could also achieve this with the standard SC command (see this answer) or PowerShell (see this MS doc).
I am currently developing an open source software based on python/django. The software should later be easy installable by a standard windows/linux users without any programming experiance. It should also be portable to different computers. The only installation that should be required on these computers should be python itself.
Is there a way to get this to work?
I already found this "dbuilder" Django Projects as Desktop applications : how to?
desktop-applications-how-to
It seems to be a bit outdated and not a very smooth solution.
Are there better solutions?
Just use a portable version of python on your memory stick. Make a batch file that runs
projname.bat file:
python.exe /django-app-path/manage.py runserver
now open a browser and browse for it
the default address will be:
http://127.0.0.1:8000
If you need to browse your app on other device that you're app is running:
get your server ip with
windows shell>ipconfig
linux shell# ifconfig
then run your development server on that address (in the batch file):
python.exe /django-app-path/manage.py runserver your-ip-address:port-if-not-80
We have a server running Windows 7 Pro. I have several Python script I'd like to save to the server and have it so that client computers can run them by simply double-clicking. The client computers are all running OSX. This is proving to be... problematic.
First I tried to simply make the Python scripts executable, but this doesn't seem to be possible on a Windows server -- since you can't set the 'executable' flag, double-clicking on a file will always open it in an editor (unless I were to go to every single computer and make .py files open with Python). Trying to create a shell script has the same problem -- there's no way to make them executable from the server.
My solution was to just make a simple AppleScript app that sends a command to launch the script. Unfortunately, as soon as I copy the app to the server, it stops working. It seems that OSX apps refuse to execute properly when saved to the server -- if you run the file, nothing happens at all.
Is there a simple solution I'm overlooking?
This is probably what you're looking for: http://oreilly.com/catalog/samba/chapter/book/ch05_03.html says that Samba clients (that OS X uses to connect to Windows shares) can map archive/hidden/system file attributes to owner/group/world executable bits respectively.
Try setting those attributes on the script file and make sure its first line is #!/usr/bin/python. If this mapping is enabled by default, the script will run by double-click.
actually the issue is that windows has no equivalent of the execute bit for files.
the solution is to change the mount options on the share so that all the files have their execute bit set.