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Python Flask Web Application on Raspberry Pi with NGINX and uWSGI

Pradeep Singh | 1st Aug 2016

Flask

Raspberry Pi is powerful enough to host any web application targeted for limited number of users. Typical use case could be an IoT application designed for Smart Home or Building.

Though you can have a full stack application (Web + App + DB) on raspberry Pi with SQLite or MySQL DB; here we are going to keep it simple with Web and App tiers.

To execute Python Code with respect to the HTTP Request we need uWSGI Server between our Web Server and Python Web Application. In this example we are going to use “uwsgi” which is one of the most popular uWSGI Servers.

In following diagram you can see the information flow and placement of different components on Raspberry Pi –

webApp_on_RaspberryPi

Following steps will guide you through the installation and configuration of required packages to deploy a basic flask application –

1. Update and Upgrade Raspberry Pi packages:

Update Raspberry Pi packages –

sudo apt-get update

Upgrade Raspberry Pi Packages –

sudo apt-get upgrade

2. Install NGINX:

Install NGINX on Raspberry Pi with apt-get –

sudo apt-get install nginx

Start NGINX Service –

sudo service nginx start

To check the NGINX installation you can type Raspberry Pi’s ip address in your browser and you should see default NGINX page with “Welcome to nginx on Debian!” message.

3. Install Flask:

sudo pip install flask

4. Install uWSGI:

Install build-essentials and python-dev on Raspberry Pi –

sudo apt-get install build-essential python-dev

Install uWSGI using pip –

sudo pip install uwsgi

5. Create a simple Python Flask App:

Create a folder in “/home/pi” directory –

mkdir /home/pi/sampleApp

Change owner of this directory –

sudo chown www-data /home/pi/sampleApp

Create a new file named as “sample_app.py” in “/home/pi/sampleApp” directory –

sudo vi /home/pi/sampleApp/sample_app.py

Add following code to “sample_app.py” file –

from flask import Flask
first_app = Flask(__name__)

@first_app.route("/")
def first_function():
 return "<html><body><h1 style='color:red'>I am hosted on Raspberry Pi !!!</h1></body></html>"

if __name__ == "__main__":
 first_app.run(host='0.0.0.0')

6. Test Flask App with Python and uWSGI:

Execute “sample_app.py” file with following command. If you don’t see any error type Raspberry Pi’s IP Address with port 5000 in your browser (http://x.x.x.x:5000/) and you should see “I am hosted on Raspberry Pi !!!” in red color.

python /home/pi/sampleApp/sample_app.py

After testing Flask app with Python, you may want to test it with uWSGI –

cd /home/pi/sampleApp/

uwsgi --socket 0.0.0.0:8000 --protocol=http -w sample_app:first_app

Now you can test your app using port 8000 with Raspberry Pi’s IP Address (http://x.x.x.x:8000/)

7. create uWSGI Initialisation File:

create a new file named as “uwsgi_config.ini” in”/home/pi/sampleApp” directory –

sudo vi /home/pi/sampleApp/uwsgi_config.ini

Add following code to “uwsgi_config.ini” file –

[uwsgi]

chdir = /home/pi/sampleApp
module = sample_app:first_app

master = true
processes = 1
threads = 2

uid = www-data 
gid = www-data
socket = /tmp/sample_app.sock
chmod-socket = 664
vacuum = true

die-on-term = true

8. Test uWSGI Initialisation File:

Execute following command –

uwsgi --ini /home/pi/sampleApp/uwsgi_config.ini

Open another session to Raspberry Pi and check if you have “sample_app.sock” file in “/tmp” directory –

ls /tmp/ |grep sample_app.sock

If you see “sample_app.sock” file in command output your configuration is correct.

9. Configure uWSGI to Auto-Start after Reboot:

Edit “/etc/rc.local” file using following command –

sudo vi /etc/rc.local

Add following command in this file before the line “exit 0” –

/usr/local/bin/uwsgi --ini /home/pi/sampleApp/uwsgi_config.ini --uid www-data --gid www-data --daemonize /var/log/uwsgi.log

10. Configure NGINX to Redirect Web Traffic to uWSGI (Reverse Proxy):

Remove “default” file from “/etc/nginx/sites-enabled/” –

sudo rm /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default

Create a new file named as “sample_app_proxy” in “/etc/nginx/sites-available/” –

sudo vi /etc/nginx/sites-available/sample_app_proxy

Add following configuration in “sample_app_proxy” file –

server {
 listen 80;
 server_name localhost;

 location / { try_files $uri @app; }
 location @app {
 include uwsgi_params;
 uwsgi_pass unix:/tmp/sample_app.sock;
 }
}

Link “/etc/nginx/sites-available/sample_app_proxy” file to “/etc/nginx/sites-enabled” directory –

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/sample_app_proxy /etc/nginx/sites-enabled

Restart NGINX Service –

sudo service nginx restart

With this your Raspberry Pi is ready with a sample Python Flask Web Application. You can type Raspberry Pi’s IP Address in your web browser to access the HTML Page.

References:

NGINX Documentation

uWSGI Documentation

Python Flask Documentation

14 thoughts on “Python Flask Web Application on Raspberry Pi with NGINX and uWSGI”

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  1. If you amended some file in your project you can reload uWSGI by adding “–touch-reload /home/pi/sampleApp/sample_app.py” to uWSGI start script in /etc/rc.local

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  3. Something is making SCRIPT_NAME use port 8000 I can’t seem to remember what I did!! can I use something as below to let uwsgi manage it?

    ..
    Starting your app with uwsgi
    uwsgi is designed to operate on WSGI callables found in python modules.

    Given a flask application in myapp.py, use the following command:

    $ uwsgi -s /tmp/yourapplication.sock –manage-script-name –mount /yourapplication=myapp:app
    The –manage-script-name will move the handling of SCRIPT_NAME to uwsgi, since its smarter about that. It is used together with the –mount directive which will make requests to /yourapplication be directed to myapp:app. If your application is accessible at root level, you can use a single / instead of /yourapplication. myapp refers to the name of the file of your flask application (without extension) or the module which provides app. app is the callable inside of your application (usually the line reads app = Flask(__name__).

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  5. Pingback: My first Alexa skill: control motorized window shades using Flask, a Raspberry Pi, and AWS Lambda - Daniel Hanold

    1. Got it
      For some reason the proxy file was not properly loaded and all http requests were sent to /var/www/html which doesn’t has any html page.

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