How To Install Python 2.7 with mod_wsgi on CentOS 5.6 with cPanel

Note: we are not using cPanel custom modules guide because it only works with built-in Python 2.4.

Creating Python folder

mkdir /usr/src/python2.7
cd /usr/src/python2.7

If required by your project, you can install SQLite

wget http://www.sqlite.org/sqlite-autoconf-3070701.tar.gz
tar zxvf sqlite-autoconf-3070701.tar.gz
cd sqlite-autoconf-3070701
./configure
make
make install

Installing Python 2.7 into alternate location since we don’t want to break Centos 5.6 (yum) that uses Python 2.4

cd /usr/src/python2.7/
wget http://www.python.org/ftp/python/2.7.2/Python-2.7.2.tgz
tar zxvf Python-2.7.2.tgz
cd Python-2.7.2
./configure --prefix=/opt/python2.7 --with-threads --enable-shared
make
make install

Creating symbolic link to the alternate Python version

ln -s /opt/python2.7/bin/python /usr/bin/python2.7
echo '/opt/python2.7/lib'>> /etc/ld.so.conf.d/opt-python2.7.conf
ldconfig

Let’s test if new Python version works

/usr/bin/python2.7

If successful you will see something like this:

Python 2.7.2 (default, Sep  3 2011, 18:28:42)[GCC 4.1.2 20080704 (Red Hat 4.1.2-50)] on linux2

press control+D to exit

Now we need to install Python setup-tools

cd /usr/src/python2.7/
wget http://pypi.python.org/packages/2.7/s/setuptools/setuptools-0.6c11-py2.7.egg
sh setuptools-0.6c11-py2.7.egg --prefix=/opt/python2.7

Installing virtualenv to our Python 2.7

cd /opt/python2.7/bin/
./easy_install virtualenv

Installing mod_wsgi (this module will work only with python 2.7)

cd /opt/python2.7/lib/python2.7/config/
ln -s ../../libpython2.7.so
cd /usr/src/python2.7/
wget http://modwsgi.googlecode.com/files/mod_wsgi-3.3.tar.gz
tar zxvf mod_wsgi-3.3.tar.gz
cd mod_wsgi-3.3
./configure --with-python=/opt/python2.7/bin/python
make
make install

We need to avoid cPanel’s easy_apache clearing up /usr/local/apache/modules folder

mkdir /usr/local/apache/extramodules
mv /usr/local/apache/modules/mod_wsgi.so /usr/local/apache/extramodules/

Include mod_wsgi into Apache configuration

nano /usr/local/apache/conf/includes/pre_virtualhost_global.conf

paste:

LoadModule wsgi_module /usr/local/apache/extramodules/mod_wsgi.so
AddHandler wsgi-script .wsgi

Before we restart Apache, lets test if we have the correct configuration

service httpd configtest

You should get this answer:

Syntax OK

Now restart Apache

/scripts/restartsrv httpd

def application(environ, start_response):
    """Simplest possible application object"""
    output = "Hello World"
    status = '200 OK'
    response_headers = [('Content-type', 'text/plain'),
                        ('Content-Length', str(len(output)))]
    start_response(status, response_headers)
    return [output]