Rackspace Arch Linux Webserver
This is how I setup my web servers on Rackspace. I make use of nginx and uWSGI where the websites make use of a few different frameworks, mainly Django, Flask, and plain static HTML sites.
My preferred Linux distro is Arch Linux, so when setting up the server on Rackspace that is the distro I select and the rest of the instructions are applicable to that distro.
Once the server has been created and is up and running, I update the system. See previous article on the steps I take to do that.
Setup nginx
# install nginx
pacman -S nginx
# setup nginx to start when server starts
systemctl enable nginx
systemctl start nginx
# update nginx.conf (/etc/nginx/nginx.conf) file
vi /etc/nginx/nginx.conf
# comment out server settings
# and add the following to the bottom of the file;
include /opt/nginx/conf/sites/*;
I place the various sites nginx config files in /opt/nginx/conf/sites/ so need to create the directory.
mkdir -p /opt/nginx/conf/sites/
Setup uWSGI
# install uWSGI
cd /opt/
wget https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/uw/uwsgi/uwsgi.tar.gz
tar -zxvf uwsgi.tar.gz
cd /opt/uwsgi
makepkg --asroot
pacman -U uwsgi*.pkg.*
cp emperor.uwsgi.service /etc/systemd/system/uwsgi.service
# setup uwsgi user and log files
useradd -c 'uwsgi user' --system --no-create-home uwsgi
mkdir -p /var/log/uwsgi
chown -R uwsgi /var/log/uwsgi
# update emperor.ini file
vi /etc/uwsgi/emperor.ini
# emperor.ini contents
[uwsgi]
uid = <uwsgi_uid> # <- get this from the /etc/passwd file
logto = /var/log/uwsgi/uwsgi.log
emperor = /etc/uwsgi/apps
master = 1
# start up uwsgi
systemctl enable uwsgi
systemctl start uwsgi
Setup VirtualEnv
I setup each of the websites in it’s own virtual environment.
pacman -S python-virtualenvwrapper
# create/update ~/.bashrc and add relevant virtualenv wrapper details
vi ~/.bashrc
# add virtualenv wrapper details to .bashrc file
export WORKON_HOME=~/env
source /usr/bin/virtualenvwrapper.sh
Various other required libs
Install the relevant repo clients you make use of. For me that is Git and Mecurial.
pacman -S git
Depending on which databases you make use of you may need the relevant database libs. I make use of PostgreSQL for my database needs most of the time and the sites require psycopg2, which in turn needs the postgresql libs.
pacman -S postgresql-libs
And that is it, I’m now all set to ran my fabric scripts, which setup and/or update the relevant site.