Update new Django and Python 2.7.* with virtualenv on Dreamhost (with passenger)

Question

Dreamhost is a great host for small project. And it's also Django friendly hosting. Everything good except python and Django version is a little bit out of date. Well it's a whole day of work to figure out how to update Python 2.7.3, Django 1.4 on dreamhost and I really want to share with whoever finding it

Answer 1

I currently have private server, a shell account and a bit of luck. So here is what I do:

1. SSH to your host to upgrade python

    cd ~
    mkdir tmp
    cd tmp
    wget http://www.python.org/ftp/python/2.7.3/Python-2.7.3.tgz
    tar zxvf Python-2.7.3.tgz
    cd Python-2.7.3
    ./configure --enable-shared --prefix=$HOME/Python27 --enable-unicode=ucs4
    make
    make install
   

2. Configure system to use our new Python. Open ~/.bashrc and add the following line

    export PATH="$HOME/Python27/bin:$PATH"
    export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$HOME/Python27/lib
   
    #save it and run
    source ~/.bashrc
   

   you can now check your python version with which python

3. Install easy_install, pip

   cd ~/tmp
   wget http://peak.telecommunity.com/dist/ez_setup.py
   python ez_setup.py
   easy_install pip
   # Or even shorter
   wget https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py
   python get-pip.py
   

4. Install virtualenv

    pip install virtualenv
    virtualenv $HOME/<site>/env
    #Switch to virtualenv
    source $HOME/<site>/env/bin/activate
   

   you can also add env path to bashrc

    export PATH="$HOME/<site>/env/bin/:$PATH"
    source ~/.bashrc
   

5. Install django and everything else

    pip install django
    pip install ....
    pip install ....
    pip install ....
   

6. Create project

    cd $HOME/<site>/
    python $HOME/<site>/env/bin/django-admin.py startproject project
   

7. Create passenger_wsgi.py in HOME/<site>/ with following content

    import sys, os
    cwd = os.getcwd()
    sys.path.append(cwd)
    sys.path.append(cwd + '/project')  #You must add your project here or 500
   
    #Switch to new python
    #You may try to replace $HOME with your actual path
    if sys.version < "2.7.3": os.execl("$HOME/<site>/env/bin/python",
        "python2.7.3", *sys.argv)
   
    sys.path.insert(0,'$HOME/<site>/env/bin')
    sys.path.insert(0,'$HOME/<site>/env/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django')
    sys.path.insert(0,'$HOME/<site>/env/lib/python2.7/site-packages')
   
    os.environ['DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE'] = "project.settings"
    import django.core.handlers.wsgi
    application = django.core.handlers.wsgi.WSGIHandler()
   

or this way

import sys, os

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

sys.path.append(os.path.join(BASE_DIR))  #You must add your project here or 500

#Switch to new python
#You may try to replace $HOME with your actual path
PYTHON_PATH = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'env', 'bin', 'python')
if sys.executable != PYTHON_PATH:
    os.execl(PYTHON_PATH, "python2.7.12", *sys.argv)

If you are using django 1.7, replace the last two line with

from django.core.wsgi import get_wsgi_application
application = get_wsgi_application()

8. Enjoy :D

---

New version of python on Dreamhost will no longer return sys.executable so you this is my version of passenger_wsgi

import sys, os

VIRTUAL_ENV_PYTHON = 'venv-python'  # Python > 2.7.6 dreamhost not return sys.executable
BASE_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__))

def is_venv_python():
    if len(sys.argv) > 0:
        last_item = sys.argv[len(sys.argv)-1]
        if last_item == VIRTUAL_ENV_PYTHON:
            return True
    return False

sys.path.append(os.path.join(BASE_DIR))  #You must add your project here or 500

#Switch to new python

PYTHON_PATH = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'env', 'bin', 'python')
if not is_venv_python():
    os.execl(PYTHON_PATH, "python2.7.12", *sys.argv + [VIRTUAL_ENV_PYTHON])

sys.path.insert(0, os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'env', 'bin'))
sys.path.insert(0, os.path.join(
    BASE_DIR, 'env', 'lib', 'python2.7', 'site-packages'
))

Answer 2

Currently Dreamhost updated servers to Ubuntu 12.04, and i've got an error:

Import Error: <path-to-python>/_io.so undefined symbol: PyUnicodeUCS2_Decode

after compiling custom python and running "python ez_setup.py"

The solution was to compile python with --enable-unicode=ucs4 at step 1

./configure --enable-shared --prefix=$HOME/Python27 --enable-unicode=ucs4