Enable python scripts in Apache

Enable python scripts in Apache

By

Tony

,

July 22, 2018

Want to run Python from Apache 2.4, this is what I did to get it working. For this exercise I am creating a web hook script and want to run them from the custom folder “/srv/www/webhooks/”.

Apache config changes

First backup and then open up “/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf” in your favorite editor..

Search for “#AddHandler cgi-script .cgi” and change this to:

AddHandler cgi-script .cgi .py

Search for “ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/”. This will return a list of folders which run cgi scripts, typically something like:

ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ “/var/www/cgi-bin/”

Because we want to run from a different folder I needed to add a new entry directly below:

ScriptAlias /webhooks/ “/srv/www/webhooks/”

Next look for a line “<Directory “/var/www/cgi-bin”>”. This defines the settings of the cgi-bin folder. At the end it has a “</Directory>”. Below this add a section for the web hooks folder:

#
# Script alias folder for web hook scripts
#
<Directory "/srv/www/webhooks">
   AllowOverride None
   Options None
   Require all granted
</Directory>

Now restart Apache to enable your changes. For RedHat use:

systemctl restart httpd.service

Create the Python script

Create a folder for your scripts, in my case my web files are under “/srv/www” so create a subfolder “webhooks”:

mkdir -p /srv/www/webhooks
chown apache.apache /srv/www/webhooks
chmod 2770 /srv/www/webhooks

Create a sample Python file “/srv/www/webhooks/test.py”

#!/usr/bin/env python
import cgi;
import cgitb;cgitb.enable()

# Print headers
print "Content-Type: text/html"
print ""

# Print page
print("<html>")
print("<title>Webhook Test Page</title>")
print("<body>Test webhook page by Zoyinc.</body>")
print("</html>")

Set the correct permissions:

chmod 770 /srv/www/webhooks/test.py

Go to your favorite browser and see if it works, the url for me is http://www.zoyinc.com/webhooks/test.py

You should see the following:

Problems

Running a virtual host

If you are running in a virtual host you may need to add the details there:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin studentsonline@zoyinc.com
    DocumentRoot /srv/www/studentsonline
    ServerName studentsonline.zoyinc.com
    ErrorLog logs/studentsonline.zoyinc.com-error_log
    CustomLog logs/studentsonline.zoyinc.com-access_log combined
    DirectoryIndex "Students OnlineM.html"
    ScriptAlias /studentsonline/ "/srv/www/studentsonline/"
    #
    # Script alias folder for students online scripts
    #
    <Directory "/srv/www/studentsonline">
       AllowOverride None
       Options None
       Require all granted
       AddHandler cgi-script .py
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>