Solved: Python3 Package Index (PIP) Usage in CGI Script

[Vorlon]

I'm using a CGI python script to generate a web page and read POST commands from that page. My python program includes this line: "FormData = cgi.FieldStorage()" to get data from a form on the web page.

Unfortunately, the CGI module in python has now been deprecated. Luckily, there is a third party alternative, "myCGI" that is in the PIP system.

But... using PIP modules requires that the python program be run in a virtual environment and I'm confused by how I would do this from an Apache web server.

Currently, I run the python script by putting this URL into the browser:
"http://myaddress.com/cgi-bin/PythonProgram.py"

But if I have to run the program inside a virtual environment, how would I specify this in the URL?

[BTW, this is for inside my home network, with no access from the big bad world, so security is less important than it would be in a commercial application.]

TIA for any thoughts or suggestions!
_________________
Casey Bralla
Chief Nerd in Residence
The NerdWorld Organisation

[Genone]

pip itself doesn't require using a virtual environment (though it is considered good practice), though not sure if Gentoo's version of pip behaves the same.

There are generally two ways to use a virtual environment for this:

a) Adjust your webserver config to use the virtual env, either for just this url or everything. You can do that by adjusting the PYTHONHOME and PATH variables accordingly (see the activate scripts).
b) Change the interpreter of your script to load the specific virtual environment (see https://bovlb.blogspot.com/2016/04/using-virtualenv-with-python-cgi-script.html for an example)

However if your script is currently specifying an absolute path to the python interpreter option a) won't work.

In the long run you may also want to switch from CGI to WSGI (the current standard for using python in web applications).

[Vorlon]

Thanks, Genone. I'll give these ideas a try.

[BTW, I __LOVE__ your photo and tagline.]
_________________
Casey Bralla
Chief Nerd in Residence
The NerdWorld Organisation

[Vorlon]

I loaded the old CGI module into a virtual python environment. (It's in PIP as "legacy-cgi"), and then call a short shell script which activates the virtual environment and calls my original python script.

I'm gonna have to figure out how to do WSGI and/or the suggested replacement functions in python some day, but this gets me going again. Also, it seems like there's lots of folks out there with my same problem, but very few have worked through the complexities of solutions. I'll wait a while and see if anybody publishes exactly what they did.

The best overall solution write-up I've found is at pythoncgi.net.
_________________
Casey Bralla
Chief Nerd in Residence
The NerdWorld Organisation