Windows

There are 3 possible deployment scenarios for windows:

1. Run as a windows service with a Python based web server like CherryPy or Twisted.
2. Run as a windows service behind another web server (either IIS or Apache) using a reverse proxy.
3. Inside IIS using a in IIS WSGI bridge, either ISAPI-WSGI or PyISAPIe. These methods are more complicated and won’t be covered by this guide.

Step 1: Install Dependencies

Both method one and two are quite similar to running the development server except that debugging info is turned off and you want to run the process as a windows service. Running as a windows service depends on the PyWin32 project. You will need to download the pre-built binary that matches your version of Python.

You can install directly into the virtualenv if you run easy_install on the downloaded installer. For example:

easy_install pywin32-217.win32-py2.7.exe

Since the web server for CherryPy has good Windows support, is available for Python 2 and 3 and can be gracefully started and stopped on demand from the service, we’ll use that as the web server. You could also substitute another web server, like the one from Twisted.

To install cherrypy run:

pip install cherrypy

Step 2: Create a Windows Service

Create a new file called pyramidsvc.py file with the following code to define your service:

# uncomment the next import line to get print to show up or see early
# exceptions if there are errors then run
#   python -m win32traceutil
# to see the output
#import win32traceutil
import win32serviceutil

PORT_TO_BIND = 80
CONFIG_FILE = 'production.ini'
SERVER_NAME = 'www.pyramid.example'

SERVICE_NAME = "PyramidWebService"
SERVICE_DISPLAY_NAME = "Pyramid Web Service"
SERVICE_DESCRIPTION = """This will be displayed as a description \
of the serivice in the Services snap-in for the Microsoft \
Management Console."""

class PyWebService(win32serviceutil.ServiceFramework):
    """Python Web Service."""

    _svc_name_ = SERVICE_NAME
    _svc_display_name_ = SERVICE_DISPLAY_NAME
    _svc_deps_ = None        # sequence of service names on which this depends
    # Only exists on Windows 2000 or later, ignored on windows NT
    _svc_description_ = SERVICE_DESCRIPTION

    def SvcDoRun(self):
        from cherrypy import wsgiserver
        from pyramid.paster import get_app
        import os, sys

        path = os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__))

        os.chdir(path)

        app = get_app(CONFIG_FILE)

        self.server = wsgiserver.CherryPyWSGIServer(
                ('0.0.0.0', PORT_TO_BIND), app,
                server_name=SERVER_NAME)

        self.server.start()


    def SvcStop(self):
        self.server.stop()


if __name__ == '__main__':
    win32serviceutil.HandleCommandLine(PyWebService)

The if __name__ == '__main__' block provides an interface to register the Service. You can register the service with the system by running:

python pyramidsvc.py install

Your service is now ready to start, you can do this through the normal Service snap-in for the Microsoft Management Console or by running:

python pyramidsvc.py start

If you want your service to start automatically you can run:

python pyramidsvc.py update --start=auto

Step 3: Reverse Proxy

If you want to run many Pyramid applications on the same machine you will need to run each of them on a different port and in a separate Service. If you want to be able to access each one through a different host name on port 80 then you will need to run another web server (IIS or Apache) up front and proxy back to the appropriate service.

There are several options available for reverse proxy with IIS. Versions starting with IIS 7 you can install and use the Application Request Routing if you want to use a Microsoft provided solution. Another option is one of the several solutions from Helicon Tech. The Helicon Ape is available without cost for up to 3 sites.

If you aren’t already using IIS Apache is available for Windows and works well. There are many reverse proxy tutorials available for Apache and they are equally applicable to Windows.