Target WSGI script cannot be loaded as Python module

Question

I am trying to deploy mod_wsgi with apache to run a django application but I am getting an error 500 internal server error The apache logs shows:

[Thu Jun 23 14:01:47 2011] [error] [client 152.78.95.64] mod_wsgi (pid=16142): Exception occurred processing WSGI script '/home/user/bms/apache/django.wsgi'.
[Thu Jun 23 14:01:47 2011] [error] [client 152.78.95.64] Traceback (most recent call last):
[Thu Jun 23 14:01:47 2011] [error] [client 152.78.95.64]   File "/home/user/bms/apache/django.wsgi", line 13, in <module>
[Thu Jun 23 14:01:47 2011] [error] [client 152.78.95.64]     import django.core.handlers.wsgi
[Thu Jun 23 14:01:47 2011] [error] [client 152.78.95.64] ImportError: No module named django.core.handlers.wsgi

My apache virtual host is as follows:

<VirtualHost *:80>

    DocumentRoot /home/user/bms

    <Directory /home/user/bms>
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all
    </Directory>

WSGIDaemonProcess bms user=user group=user processes=2 threads=25 python-path=/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages


    WSGIProcessGroup bms

    WSGIScriptAlias / /home/user/bms/apache/django.wsgi

</VirtualHost>

And the referenced wsgi file in my app directory with 0777 permissions:

import os
import sys

path = '/home/user/bms'
if path not in sys.path:
    sys.path.append(path)

os.environ['DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE'] = 'bms.settings'

import django.core.handlers.wsgi
application = django.core.handlers.wsgi.WSGIHandler()

I heard that this may be because the apache user does not have the correct permissions. However I have no idea how to fix this. I also tried starting the deamon with the www-data user and this did not solve the issue.

EDIT:

I solved this by copying the virtual hosts file into the default one and then disabling the old one with a2dissite. I have no idea how I can do it "properly" and set it so apache goes to the virtual host I want it to though.

Solution 1

For me the problem was wsgi python version mismatch. I was using python 3, so:

$ sudo apt-get remove libapache2-mod-python libapache2-mod-wsgi
$ sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-wsgi-py3

Warning from @alxs before you copy/paste these commands:
If there are python 2 projects running on the server that use wsgi and apache, the above commands will effectively shut them down.

Solution 2

For me the issue was that the WSGI script wasn't executable.

sudo chmod a+x django.wsgi

or just

sudo chmod u+x django.wsgi

so long as you have the correct owner

Solution 3

I had a similar problem with this error message in the logs:

Target WSGI script '/home/web2py/wsgihandler.py' cannot be loaded as Python module.

The solution was the deletion of an incorrect WSGIPythonHome directive (pointing to the application directory) from /etc/httpd/conf.d/wsgi.conf

I'm on RedHat using CentOS repositories.

Recommend following Graham Dumpleton's installation/configuration instructions. Testing configuration against the helloworld application showed me that mod_wsgi was working and the configuration was at fault.

However, the error message gave little clue as to what was wrong.

Solution 4

I had the same problem and at first I didn't realise I could scroll further down and see the actual error message. In my case, it was an import error:

ImportError: No module named bootstrap3

After installing it via pip (pip install django-bootstrap3), I restarted Apache and it worked.

Solution 5

Appending path in wsgi.py is the direction, but instead of appending django appending path sys.path.append("/path/to/virtual/environment/lib/pythonX.X/site-packages") fixed my case.

This is for a django project using python2.7 on ubuntu 16.04.

View more solutions

Comments

[Graham Dumpleton]

After the "Target WSGI script '/home/web2py/wsgihandler.py' cannot be loaded as Python module." line in log there should have been a bunch of other stuff including Python traceback and exception message. There should have been a lot more information than that, that is only the first line and not the real information.

[user83039]

Who should be the owner of wsgi.py? I have root set as group/owner.

[Gerry]

Sorry I can't remember. That was back in 2013. Try sudo chmod a+x django.wsgi and that will allow execution no matter who tries to run it. If that works then some searching on google might turn up the answer.

[jsetting32]

where is the django.wsgi file?

[Gerry]

Well for the Op, the file is located at /home/user/bms/apache/django.wsgi. You may need to use the "locate" (or mlocate) command: thegeekstuff.com/2012/03/locate-command-examples

[alxs]

Before someone copies/pastes the above, note that if there are python 2 projects running on the server that use wsgi and apache, the above commands will effectively shut them down.

[Mahn]

Solved my issue after paying close attention to the traceback, listen to @GrahamDumpleton because he's right.

[Graham Dumpleton]

As the author of mod_wsgi I know of no length limitation on the name of the process group. I would suspect the problem was elsewhere and your restart of Apache probably resolved it.

[user1129682]

@GrahamDumpleton Maybe, but that had to be a problem that is implicitly fixed with an apache restart, because it was a fresh deployment and the config files came from my repository. I definetly only changed these four lines between restarts. Not unlikely though! Maybe keystone trips over not existing log files and or directories which are implicitly created, but too late. After a restart these files/directories are there.

[User]

@alxs So I guess there's no way to run Python 2 and 3 projects on Apache?

[alxs]

@User I haven't tried to do something like that tbh, so I can't really tell. Maybe this answers your question though: stackoverflow.com/questions/14375520/…. In any case, it could prove troublesome (if it's possible) and given that Python 2 is officialy not maintaiined anymore, I think it would be a good choice to consider moving to Python 3.

[Almett]

This solution finally helped. Thank you so much!