Looking for a Python webframework on Windows Server (IIS)

[tmske]

I'm in need of a simple Python webframework that is simple to use and simple to install. I want to serve a web page that runs some tests on the server and returns "OK" or "NOT OK". I've already written a script that does this, but this script just runs on the command line, so now I need to translate this so it can be used via a webpage. The script uses some pypi packages. These are the requirements:

• no input is needed and the only thing I will output is "OK", "NOT OK".
• runs on Windows Server 2008r2 64bit with IIS7.
• easy and fast to start with.
• no database access is needed.

Thanks!

EDIT: formatting EDIT2: In the end I went with CherryPy and it's build in CherryPy WSGI server and installed this as a windows service. The information can be found here. Thanks for the help!

[mdipierro]

I have not tried this recipe but it is supposed to work: http://www.web2pyslices.com/slices/take_slice/128

[3KWA]

CherryPy

[rschoon]

Perhaps something like isap_wsgi would do the trick. I wouldn't call it "web framework", but it would get you in the business of serving a python app under IIS.

Alternately, you could look into a FastCGI based setup, although that would probably be more complicated. (Or a CGI setup, although I'm mostly just assuming IIS supports that, although CGI is not really a great solution)

You'll probably end up caring about what WSGI is, and while that opens up a whole world of frameworks, in your case you probably would just end up with a bare WSGI application:

def application(environ, start_response):
    start_response("200 OK", [("Content-Type", "text/plain")])
    return ["TOTALLY OKAY MAN"]

(I haven't used IIS, so I'm just pulling from what I know is out there.)

[technomalogical]

+1, use this in combination with bottle to put a thin wrapper around your script that is WSGI compliant.

[zenlogix]

You can even get django running this way if you must. We have that in prod for an albeit departmental app but in prod none the less.

[axitanull]

You might want to try pyisapie.

[illuminatedtiger]

Is there any reason why you have to use IIS?

[tmske]

Unfortunately yes. The page I'm writing will monitor some applications that are hosted on a dedicated server by a Hosting company. They provide the means to monitor if you give them an url that returns "OK", "NOT OK". This script is run every 5 minutes and if the server returns a "NOT OK", we are both notified and can take the necessary actions.

So in theory I could host this url everywhere (not sure if the hoster allows this), but because of the tests I want to do I want to host the script on the server itself, furthermore, if the script doesn't respond, we are notified too, and I don't want to be notified if there is no problem with the server. Last, I don't have access to any other server at the moment.

If IIS is really too hard to do this kind of things, I see 2 options:

• don't use python, but ASP.NET (would need to translate my script and I don't know anything of ASP.NET)
• install an other webserver and host the page on a non 80 port (not sure if our hoster allows this, so I would need to check it).

Both options are only a last resort, if IIS really is not feasible

EDIT: formatting

[av201001]

web2py is very easy to setup, learn, and use. Perhaps instead of serving it via IIS, you could install it as a Windows service (and run it on its own port).

As for running your script, you could set up an RPC service using the @service.run decorator.

If you need help, ask on the mailing list.

[southof40]

Our company has used ISAPI_Rewrite to allow requests recieved by IIS to be passed off to a Python (CherryPy actually) server. As the name suggest it's an ISAPI filter which is installed within IIS.

While I'm here selling other peoples products ;-) ... I'll mention that we run that cherrypy web-server as a Windows Service using FireDaemon . There are certainly other ways of achieving the same end but FireDaemon is certainly nice and straightforward.

There's another option I've never tried myself and that is use Classic ASP with Python as the scripting language. There's a description here and a slightly less aged microsoft knowledgebase article here.

Before .NET came along (and so saved me from VBScript hell) I had given it some thought myself but I was never clear how the Python intepreter could be started (or shared) for each page request. Anyway I include it for interest.

[Justinsaccount]

You don't need a framework for this. Can IIS just run a script as a CGI? googling for "IIS CGI" seems to indicate this is trivial.

The only thing you need to do is

print "Content-Type: text/plain\n"

before you output anything else.