jessenoller.com

So, I’m one of those peo­ple where I don’t like run­ning things “too far” from what a pro­duc­tion setup might look like (I code on OS/X, deploy to Linux). This is why I jump(ed) through var­i­ous hoops on my OS X sys­tem to get Apache/Django/mod_wsgi/etc all up and run­ning and happy (not for serv­ing the site; just developing).

Since I like simple/succinct guides, I thought I’d post what I did so oth­ers can fol­low in my stead.

Note: These instruc­tions work with the python 2.5 ver­sion which ships with Leop­ard, or a self-compiled ver­sion of 2.6 (which is what I pre­fer) — see the Instal­la­tionOn­Ma­cOSX mod_wsgi page. Addi­tion­ally, see the “Miss­ing Code For Archi­tec­ture” sec­tion for pos­si­ble work-arounds if you find your­self need­ing 32 bit exe­cu­tion of Apache; I think the “Forc­ing 32 Bit Exe­cu­tion” are pre­ferred over the “thin­ning” of the Apache binary.

First, down­load and install mod_wsgi on leop­ard, this is as easy as (on Leopard):

curl -o mod_wsgi.tgz http://modwsgi.googlecode.com/files/mod_wsgi-2.5.tar.gz
tar -xzf mod_wsgi.tgz
cd mod_wsgi-2.5
./configure
make
sudo make install

Now, edit (via sudo) /etc/apache2/httpd.conf and add the line:

LoadModule wsgi_module libexec/apache2/mod_wsgi.so

After the rest of the Load­Mod­ule lines. Cool.

Invari­ably all of my direc­tions play with virtualenv/virtualenvwrapper and pip:

mkvirtualenv django
cdvirtualenv
easy_install pip
pip install http://media.djangoproject.com/releases/1.1/Django-1.1-rc-1.tar.gz
django-admin.py startproject mysite
django-admin.py startapp myapp
cd mysite
mkdir apache
mkdir media

Now, that just sets up the skele­ton — the meat of the wsgi con­fig­u­ra­tion goes in apache/ in the mysite/apache direc­tory. The first file is named mysite.wsgi:

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import os, sys
 
#Calculate the path based on the location of the WSGI script.
apache_configuration = os.path.dirname(__file__)
project = os.path.dirname(apache_configuration)
workspace = os.path.dirname(project)
sys.path.append(workspace)
 
os.environ['DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE'] = 'mysite.settings'
import django.core.handlers.wsgi
application = django.core.handlers.wsgi.WSGIHandler()

This does the needed wsgi project magic for the Django appli­ca­tion — don’t worry about the inter­preter path; we’ll do that next.

Next up is a file named apache_django_wsgi.conf, this looks like this:

# mod_wsgi configuration directives - I like having stdout access, the other two
# options run mod_wsgi in daemon mode - more on this in a minute.
WSGIPythonHome /<path to virtualenv>
WSGIRestrictStdout Off
WSGIDaemonProcess django
WSGIProcessGroup django

#
# This should be the path of the /mysite/media directory
# for example "/Users/jesse/mysite/media/"
#
Alias /site_media/ "<PATH TO>/mysite/media/"
<Directory "<PATH TO>/mysite/media">
Order allow,deny
Options Indexes
Allow from all
IndexOptions FancyIndexing
</Directory>

#
# Directory path to the admin media, for example:
#

Alias /media/ "<PATH TO>/virtualenv/site-packages/django/contrib/admin/media/"
<Directory "<PATH TO>/virtualenv/site-packages/django/contrib/admin/media">
Order allow,deny
Options Indexes
Allow from all
IndexOptions FancyIndexing
</Directory>

#
# Path to the mysite.wsgi file, for example:
# "/Users/jesse/mysite/apache/mysite.wsgi"
#

WSGIScriptAlias / "<PATH TO>/mysite/apache/mysite.wsgi"

<Directory "<PATH TO>/mysite/apache">
Allow from all
</Directory>

The apache_django_wsgi.conf file is the meat-and-potatoes here. This sets up all the paths/permissions, and is in Apache httpd.conf for­mat. You can pretty much log­jam any apache con­fig­u­ra­tion direc­tive here that you like.

Your final step is to once again edit (via sudo) /etc/apache2/httpd.conf and add a line like this at the ver­rrrry bottom:

Include "/path to/mysite/apache/apache_django_wsgi.conf"

And then run “sudo apachectl restart”

You should now be able to hit http://127.0.0.1/ and see the friendly and invit­ing django wel­come page. Note, that if you are using sqlite as your data­base, you should chmod a+rw the file, so that processes which are not you can mess with it.

There’s a final piece to this though. Nor­mally, if you run mod_wsgi in embed­ded mode, you’re going to need to restart apache every sin­gle time you make a change to your django app.

Ah! But we’re run­ning in dae­mon mode. This means all you need to do when you change a file is:

touch mysite/apache/mysite.wsgi

This will trig­ger a reload and magic hap­pens. Me being as lazy as I am (ask my wife) ended up snag­ging Bruno Bord’s tdae­mon script, and hack­ing it up a bit. The tdae­mon script will watch a direc­tory and run tests. Well, I wanted it to watch a direc­tory (and let me fil­ter sub direc­to­ries) and then run that touch com­mand. So I reused my watcher.py (here) — I used this to mon­i­tor my sphinx tree and run builds as well (and other stuff). Here’s how I’d use this:

workon django
cdvirtualenv
cd mysite
python ~/.slash/bin/watcher.py --command "touch apache/mysite.wsgi" -f media

This will auto-fire the touch com­mand when­ever it detects a file change (includ­ing svn updates).

You can also do this another way
In my rush to reuse a tool I use a bit (watcher) I skipped past the mod_wsgi doc­u­ment sec­tion on code reload­ing that shows how to setup a mon­i­tor which will watch .py file changes and kill the wsgi dae­mon, here. If you scroll down a bit, you’ll see the “Mon­i­tor­ing For Code Changes” sec­tion. All you need to do here is copy the code from the wiki into a mod­ule on your PYTHONPATH — in my case, I wrote it to mysite/apache/wsgi_monitor.py (just for this exam­ple! you should put it some­place else!) and then changed the mysite.wsgi file to import it, and set it up:

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import os, sys
 
#Calculate the path based on the location of the WSGI script.
apache_configuration = os.path.dirname(__file__)
project = os.path.dirname(apache_configuration)
workspace = os.path.dirname(project)
sys.path.append(workspace)
 
sys.path.append(apache_configuration) # you probably shouldn't do this.
import wsgi_monitor
wsgi_monitor.start(interval=1.0)
 
os.environ['DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE'] = 'ui.settings'
import django.core.handlers.wsgi
application = django.core.handlers.wsgi.WSGIHandler()

This method — once you reload apache — will watch the project for changes and then kill the wsgi dae­mon (forces a reload). So there you go — two ways of doing it.

The nice thing about this setup is that I can make pro­duc­tion ver­sion of the wsgi scripts and check them in, but keep local “my copies” (ala local_settings.py) addi­tion­ally, I don’t have to jump through hoops to get sta­tic media and con­tent served up via the django devel­op­ment server.

Addi­tional reading:

• http://code.djangoproject.com/wiki/django_apache_and_mod_wsgi
• http://ericholscher.com/blog/2008/jul/8/setting-django-and-mod_wsgi/
• http://code.google.com/p/modwsgi/wiki/IntegrationWithDjango

So, I'm one of those people where I don't like running things "too far" from what a production setup might look like (I code on OS/X, deploy to Linux). This is why I jump(ed) through various hoops on my OS X system to get Apache/Django/mod_wsgi/etc all up and running and happy (not for serving ...

Just a quick note — I’ve got 10 Ever­note invites — if you don’t know what Ever­note is, check out the Ars review here. Post in the com­ments if you’d like to test drive it. I’m going to need an email address.

So far, I’m lov­ing it — but I’m also some­one with about 500+ book­marks in Safari, a ton of “to read” stuff saved on my hard drive, and over 100 RSS feeds in Net­NewsWire. So some­thing to help me archive/save/search every­thing is key.

Now I just want PDF index­ing support.

Ok, I have 10 more left!

Just a quick note - I've got 10 Evernote invites - if you don't know what Evernote is, check out the Ars review here. Post in the comments if you'd like to test drive it. I'm going to need an email address. So far, I'm loving it - but I'm also someone with about 500+ ...

Ok. So Sun has come out stat­ing they’re start­ing work based on the SDK released by Apple for the iPhone ear­lier this week to port the JDK over to the iPhone.

Quot­ing the sun rep:

“Now, the iPhone is open” as a tar­get plat­form, Klein said. The free JVM would be made avail­able via Apple’s App­Store mar­ket­place for third-party applications.

Now, as com­ments there and else­where have pointed out — there’s a clause in the Agree­ment that comes with the SDK for­bid­ding appli­ca­tions from being placed on the App­Store that can execute/interpret “other appli­ca­tions” — to whit:

3.3.2) An Appli­ca­tion may not itself install or launch other exe­cutable code by any means, includ­ing with­out lim­i­ta­tion through the use of a plug-in archi­tec­ture, call­ing other frame­works, other APIs or oth­er­wise. No inter­preted code may be down­loaded and used in an Appli­ca­tion except for code that is inter­preted and run by Apple’s Pub­lished APIs and builtin interpreter(s).

So — unless Sun plans on mak­ing a JDK that a) doesn’t run any­thing or b) can be com­piled into an appli­ca­tion that is to be sold on the App­Store (pro­vid­ing the run­time for the app, like a self-standing .jar/.war) then I can’t see this hap­pen­ing, and option a is about as use­ful as a toi­let bowl filled with taco meat.

On the other hand, option b: Mak­ing a run­time they release out­side of the app store for appli­ca­tion devel­op­ers to use to write an appli­ca­tion in Java and then have it compile-down to an Objective-C runtime/bytecode binary — then it could work, but those would be some *fat* bina­ries with­out a lot of magic.

Now — could the same thing be done with Python? Per­haps. Right now we have the pyObjC bridge that ships with Leop­ard that allows you mostly unfet­tered access into the Objective-C/OSX pro­gram­ming envi­ron­ment. This means you can build “native” appli­ca­tions in Python.

I doubt these bind­ings will work/exist on the iPhone, which means you want some util­ity to take Python code and “inter­pret” it down into an Objective-C binary, i.e.: an embed-able envi­ron­ment ala what Sun may end up hav­ing to do where you write an app in pyObjC/Python and the app+runtime is com­piled down into Objective-C.

Again, with­out a lot of trick­ery, these would be fatass bina­ries — prob­a­bly fat­ter than the notion of the uni­ver­sal bina­ries most peo­ple ship nowa­days for OS/X.

It’s a thought — now I should get back to pok­ing at Objective-C and other pre-pycon hack­ery. This is some­thing peo­ple more versed in com­pil­ers, run­times and with more free time than me will prob­a­bly explore.

Ok. So Sun has come out stating they're starting work based on the SDK released by Apple for the iPhone earlier this week to port the JDK over to the iPhone. Quoting the sun rep:"Now, the iPhone is open" as a target platform, Klein said. The free JVM would be made available via Apple's ...

Because you, like me, are inter­ested in writ­ing some iPhone apps (and apple is only allow­ing objective-C stuff right now :sad:) — here is a free eBook I kept in my pocket for when I wanted to finally dive in.

It’s call “BecomeAnX­coder” from CocoaLab

Because you, like me, are interested in writing some iPhone apps (and apple is only allowing objective-C stuff right now :sad:) - here is a free eBook I kept in my pocket for when I wanted to finally dive in. It's call "BecomeAnXcoder" from CocoaLab

Net­NewWire, my favorite feed reader ever has gone totally free: Brent Sim­mons on Net­NewsWire 3.1’s Release as Free­ware. I highly rec­om­mend Net­NewWire for feed man­age­ment on OS/X espe­cially for the clipping/blogging fea­tures. I’ve never quite been able to “get into” online read­ers (much like my con­tin­ued need to use an offline mail clients) but NNW also syncs with NewGator’s online sys­tems — which means you can browse your feeds with their online apps as well.

The cross-synchronization and the iPhone opti­mized ver­sion of the online client is what keeps me hooked (also the cold fact that with­out it, I’d have to prune my list of 117 feeds (includ­ing 6 plan­ets and reddit/dzone)).

Yeah, it hap­pened a few days ago, I’m still wad­ing through a back­log of posts.

NetNewWire, my favorite feed reader ever has gone totally free: Brent Simmons on NetNewsWire 3.1’s Release as Freeware. I highly recommend NetNewWire for feed management on OS/X especially for the clipping/blogging features. I've never quite been able to "get into" online readers (much like my continued need to use an offline mail clients) ...

This is an excel­lent post from yes­ter­day — the author out­lines how, using 10.5 PyObjC bind­ings and the Leop­ard Automa­tor, you can add a “run python script” automa­tor action.

I par­tic­u­larly like his fol­lowup post on where he out­lines how to use the new ‘run in python’ action to ship files off to Amazon’s S3 storage.

The lat­ter of the two posts actu­ally hooked me up with the “boto” python mod­ule — which looks like an excel­lent mod­ule for inter­act­ing with Amazon’s web ser­vices, some­thing I’ve been exam­in­ing recently for a side-project.

This is an excellent post from yesterday - the author outlines how, using 10.5 PyObjC bindings and the Leopard Automator, you can add a "run python script" automator action. I particularly like his followup post on where he outlines how to use the new 'run in python' action to ship files off to Amazon's S3 ...

So, most every­one know that Apple released OS/X Leop­ard a bit ago — I was on the early adopter train, and have not had any prob­lems (except for the occa­sional spaces crash because I mash but­tons fast).

One of the cooler things that came out with Leop­ard was a com­pletely over­hauled PyObjC built-in. Includ­ing Webkit bind­ings, and many other things (see here and here for more details), a built-in ver­sion of twisted and many other things.

How­ever, I was a moron. I was knee-deep in debug­ging a prob­lem and com­pul­sively replaced my came-with-leopard ver­sion of Python with the python.org python 2.5.1 build. (Any­one with tips on how to undo this, please let me know).

Once I dropped in the 2.5.1 ver­sion: poof. I man­aged to wipe out all of the deli­cious stuff built into my shiny new OS, which made me a sad panda. Once the PyObjC 2.0 stuff hit the PyObjC SVN tree (here) though, I was filled with hope that I could at least restore the PyObjC stuff.

Alas! It was not to be. Come to find out, there’s a hard coded string in the macpython make­file which causes the pyobjc build to use the wrong SDK and puke and die. After much wail­ing and gnash­ing of teeth, I gave up not real­iz­ing what the prob­lem was. You should see a prob­lem like this:

C compiler: gcc -arch ppc -arch i386 -isysroot /Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.4u.sdk -fno-strict-aliasing -Wno-long-double -no-cpp-precomp -mno-fused-madd -fno-common -dynamic -DNDEBUG -g -O3

com­pile options: ‘-I/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/include/python2.5 –c’
gcc: Modules/_Foundation_nscoder.m
Modules/_Foundation_nscoder.m: In func­tion ‘imp_NSCoder_encodeArrayOfObjCType_count_at_’:
Modules/_Foundation_nscoder.m:220: error: ‘NSUIn­te­ger’ unde­clared (first use in this func­tion)
Modules/_Foundation_nscoder.m:220: error: (Each unde­clared iden­ti­fier is reported only once
Modules/_Foundation_nscoder.m:220: error: for each func­tion it appears in.)
Modules/_Foundation_nscoder.m:220: error: syn­tax error before ‘count’
Modules/_Foundation_nscoder.m:228: error: syn­tax error before ‘i’
Modules/_Foundation_nscoder.m:249: error: ‘count’ unde­clared (first use in this func­tion)
Modules/_Foundation_nscoder.m:256: error: ‘i’ unde­clared (first use in this func­tion)


How­ever, last night I was snowed-in at work and in between bug fixes for work, I man­aged to dig up a post (with fix) on the issue I was hav­ing (thanks Barry).

The short answer is sync the tree from sub­ver­sion, and then edit the fol­low­ing file:

/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/lib/python2.5/config/Makefile


And remove the “-isys­root /Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.4u.sdk” chunk of text. Drop into the sync’ed svn tree and run the 02-develop-all.sh script. Now I can hap­pily import WebKit:

Python 2.5.1 (r251:54869, Apr 18 2007, 22:08:04)
[GCC 4.0.1 (Apple Computer, Inc. build 5367)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import WebKit
>>>


So, most everyone know that Apple released OS/X Leopard a bit ago - I was on the early adopter train, and have not had any problems (except for the occasional spaces crash because I mash buttons fast). One of the cooler things that came out with Leopard was a completely overhauled PyObjC built-in. Including Webkit ...

After much wait­ing my iphone is all setup and con­fig­ured i am going to have to get used to typ­ing on it though. I have fat thumbs.

And yes — it is as good as you’ve heard.

After much waiting my iphone is all setup and configured i am going to have to get used to typing on it though. I have fat thumbs. And yes - it is as good as you've heard.

Text­Mate 1.5 is released!

I’ll tell you this much — ever since I watched this screen cast by a guy using it for Python, I’ve spent a lot more time work­ing on the more inter­est­ing lan­guage features.

I’ve added a lot of stuff per­ti­nent to my work in the snip­pets, tab trig­gers, etc. I really have not been this happy with an edi­tor in some time.

Really, you should check it out.

TextMate 1.5 is released! I'll tell you this much - ever since I watched this screen cast by a guy using it for Python, I've spent a lot more time working on the more interesting language features. I've added a lot of stuff pertinent to my work in the snippets, tab triggers, etc. I really have ...

Ran across this app via ver­sion tracker: AlmostVPN — Trac

It’s inter­est­ing — it’s an SSH tun­nel­ing man­ager that sits in the Pref. Pane in OS/X instead of being a stand­alone appli­ca­tion. For those of us who have to VPN a lot, but despise things like the offi­cial Cisco VPN client (on any damned plat­form) this might be use­ful (if you have ssh access into the cor­po­rate network).

Ran across this app via version tracker: AlmostVPN - Trac It's interesting - it's an SSH tunneling manager that sits in the Pref. Pane in OS/X instead of being a standalone application. For those of us who have to VPN a lot, but despise things like the official Cisco VPN client (on any damned platform) ...