Recently I’ve been playing around with REST API’s, during my search for a good framework, I stumbled across Django Rest Framework and fell in love with it instantly. It’s an easy, well documented Framework and there is a quick-start tutorial so you can get going pretty fast. One huge bonus is that the Django Rest Framwork has a build-in Web browsable API, this obviously, is a very welcome feature, especially during the development phase.
The VPS I’m using is relying on CentOS 6.6 for it’s operating system. This poses a problem; CentOS 6.6 comes with Python 2.6.6 installed, while Django requires Python 2.7 or higher.
In this blog post I’m going explain how we can install Django and all it’s required files on a CentOS 6.6 server with Plesk 12. Once you completed all steps you can install Django Rest Framework as described here.
Backup
Before proceeding with any upgrades or installations it is always wise to have a good backup or a snapshot if you are running a virtual machine. Once your backup or snapshot is created connect to your server via SSH with your root user.
Python installation
First of all, lets check your current Python version:
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python -V |
If your version is lower then 2.7.x we have to update, so lets get started. We are going to install Python 2.7.9, pip, virtualenv and we will use Phusion Passenger as an application server for hosting the Django projects.
Update CentOS and install the development tools
Because Python needs to be compiled we need the Development tools, so lets install them.
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yum -y update yum groupinstall -y 'development tools' |
Install the required components for the Python installation
We also need to install a bunch of components before we can start download and install Python.
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yum install -y zlib-devel bzip2-devel openssl-devel xz-libs wget sqlite-devel |
Download and extract Python
To download and extract Python run the following commands.
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# Download the Python 2.7.9 source: wget http://www.python.org/ftp/python/2.7.9/Python-2.7.9.tar.xz # Extract the source: xz -d Python-2.7.9.tar.xz tar -xvf Python-2.7.9.tar |
Compile and install Python
And now that we have download and extract the required source files, lets configure, make and (alt)install Python.
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# Run the configure: cd Python-2.7.9 ./configure --prefix=/usr/local # Compile and install Python: make make altinstall # Add the binaries to the system's PATH: export PATH="/usr/local/bin:$PATH" |
* We use “make altinstall” because the regular “make install” method can break yum.
Install setuptools
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# Download the setuptools: wget --no-check-certificate https://pypi.python.org/packages/source/s/setuptools/setuptools-1.4.2.tar.gz # Extract the files: tar -xvf setuptools-1.4.2.tar.gz # Install setuptools using the Python 2.7.9: cd setuptools-1.4.2 python2.7 setup.py install |
Install pip
We use pip to install virtualenv, pip is the Python package installer (preferred installer program).
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# Download and run the get-pip script: curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/pypa/pip/master/contrib/get-pip.py | python2.7 - |
Install virtualenv
To setup a separate virtual Python environment for each app we use virtualenv.
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pip2.7 install virtualenv |
Install the Phusion Passenger application server
Install Ruby
Lets install Ruby with some extra components. I’ve added nano so we can use it later during the config of Phusion, you are however free to use any other text editor.
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yum -y install ruby-devel zlib-devel curl-devel openssl-devel httpd-devel apr-devel apr-util-devel mysql-devel ruby-rdoc nano |
Install the Phusion gem
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# Download the gems: wget http://production.cf.rubygems.org/rubygems/rubygems-1.8.17.tgz # Extract the gems: tar zxvf rubygems-1.8.17.tgz # Run the gems setup: cd rubygems-1.8.17 ruby setup.rb |
Install and build Passenger for apache
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# Install passenger: gem install passenger # Use the passenger installer to guide you through the installation process: # Make sure Ruby and Python are checked during the setup passenger-install-apache2-module |
Now copy the config output and past it in your favorite texteditor.
Create the Passenger config file
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# Change Directory to the httpd config directory: cd /etc/httpd/conf.d # Open texteditor to create the config file nano passenger.conf |
Paste the copied config and Write Out the passenger.conf file.
Restart apache
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/sbin/service httpd restart |
Close your SSH connection
Setup your hosting in Plesk
Create a domain or subdomain and change it’s Document root to a subdirectory, in this example we use “/django-app/django-public”. Later on we use the parent directory to store the virtual environment and passenger script.
Once you’ve created the (sub)domain empty the content of the django-public folder, Plesk will automatically copy the default site stub data to it.
Enable SSH
To setup the virtualenv and install Django lets enable SSH for the current domain user. Once enabled, connect to the server via SSH with the username associated with the domain.
Create the Virtual Environment
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cd django-app/ # Create the virtual environment: virtualenv django-app-venv # And activate it source django-app-venv/bin/activate |
Install Django
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pip install Django |
And verify your Django installation.
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python >>> import django >>> print(django.get_version()) 1.8 (enter CTRL+D to close the Python command) |
Upload your app
Use your favorite ftp or ssh client to upload your Django application. In the parent directory “django-app”.
Setup Passenger
To setup the application server we need to create a file named passenger_wsgi.py and place it in the “django-app” directory.
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import sys, os app_name = 'mydjangoapp' env_name = 'django-app-venv' cwd = os.getcwd() sys.path.append(cwd) sys.path.append(cwd + '/' + app_name) INTERP = cwd + '/' + env_name + '/bin/python' if sys.executable != INTERP: os.execl(INTERP, INTERP, *sys.argv) sys.path.insert(0, cwd + '/' + env_name + '/bin') sys.path.insert(0, cwd + '/' + env_name + '/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django') sys.path.insert(0, cwd + '/' + env_name + '/lib/python2.7/site-packages') os.environ.setdefault("DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE", app_name + ".settings") from django.core.wsgi import get_wsgi_application application = get_wsgi_application() |
Replace the variables on line 3 with the name of your app directory.
Check your app
Eureka! A Django app hosted on a CentOS 6.6 server with Plesk 12.
Sources:
Installing Python 2.7.9 on CentOS 6.5
Phusion Passenger with Apache on RHEL 6 / CentOS 6 / SL 6 with SELinux