Installing Web2Py on DreamHost

• For starters, see the README file at https://github.com/web2py/web2py.
• Create a fully-hosted domain at DreamHost. I used web2py.bikmort.com.
• Site configuration options include: Remove WWW from beginning of name; use PHP 5.6 FastCGI (default) and Passenger.
• Since DreamHost uses Passenger as its web app server, extra steps are required to get Web2Py working.
• Use a shell account to open a terminal window on your DreamHost server.
• Create a virtual python environment in ~/python (could go elsewhere, but remember the path):

$ cd ~
$ virtualenv python
$ source python/bin/activate
$ pip install requests  # needed by cams app and others

• Clone sources from the Web2Py github site¹⁾ into web-server directory (using web2py.bikmort.com as an example):

$ git clone --recursive https://github.com/web2py/web2py.git web2py.bikmort.com

• To update to latest Web2Py later (from within web-server directory):

$ cd ~/web2py.bikmort.com
$ git pull --recurse-submodules

• Copy handlers/wsgihandler.py to ./passenger_wsgi.py and edit:

$ cp handlers/wsgihandler.py passenger_wsgi.py

• Insert these two lines at around line 40 in passenger_wsgi.py (before call to os.path.isdir):

INTERP = os.path.join(os.environ['HOME'], 'python', 'bin', 'python')
if sys.executable != INTERP: os.execl(INTERP, INTERP, *sys.argv)

• Note that the INTERP path points to the virtualenv-created executable created earlier.
• Create tmp/restart.txt. Touch this file to force relaunch of Web2Py via Passenger.

The Web2Py environment should now be operational. Visit the domain created earlier to see it.

• There are two branches in the top-level repository: master (the standard Web2Py version) and dreamhost (the additions to run it on DreamHost).
• To see the differences, use “git diff master” (assuming “dreamhost” is current branch).
• Use “git merge master” to pull changes to the master into the dreamhost branch.

• An empty WDW application at https://bitbucket.org/jtkorb/wdw.
• Clone into applications directory and it (should be) ready to go.
• Current model is to develop on laptop, test locally, commit changes, ssh to DreamHost server, and pull changes to applications/wdw directory.

• These steps do not currently (1/8/2017) appear to work reliably (Google-imposed security concerns). Should find a better way to send email.
• Edit applications/appname/private/appconfig.ini
• Login: email-login:password
• Use SSL with port 465
• At Google-app admin site: allow insecure applications and disable captcha.

These steps allow remote browser access to the Web2Py administrative control panels (both the master panel at admin as well as the app-specific panels at MYAPP/appadmin.

• Enable https from the DreamHost domain management panel.
• The free certificate from “Let's Encrypt SSL” works.
• Wait for a few minutes for the certificate to get created and installed.
• Restart the web server by touching tmp/restart.txt.
• Set an admin password.

$ python web2py.py -p 443 -a "secret-secure-password"

This command will give errors (for among other reasons, a user process cannot listen on port 443), but it will have generated the necessary parameters_443.py file.

To redirect all accesses to be via https, there are two options:

1. Use an .htaccess file to do a redirect as described by DreamHost here.
2. Use Web2Py Auth(…, secure=True) setting, but note that this change breaks Travis CI testing.

In either case, there might be cached browser files that break the redirect, for example, redirecting http://www.mysite.com/myapp to https://www.mysite.com/public/myapp. Verify by opening an incognito window; fix by clearing cached files in the browser.