mod_wsgi on OpenBSD

Ever since I started learning about OpenBSD a few years ago, I always tried to find easier ways of getting Python to play with the version of Apache that comes with OpenBSD out of the box. Mod_Python was a nice try but it doesn't work with Apache 1.3. So I've been settling with FastCGI for the time being. Works ok and seems to have some advantages but it can be difficult to get going, especially in a chrooted environment. Well, while browsing the django docs I noticed that the preferred setup switched from mod_python to mod_wsgi. This was a nice surprise since mod_wsgi works with Apache 1.3 and 2.0+ (if I'm reading their docs right). To top it off, I found a port entry by James Turner that looked good. It was a couple versions old but still good to try. I threw the port into an OpenBSD test environment and it installed without issues. But that's where the fun ended.

After I installed it and tried to start the Apache server, the errors started to flow. Kinda disappointing but in mod_wsgi's defense, it's difficult to account for everything type of apache setup when creating a mod. I dug around a bit and found that the issue is with the chrooting and the pthread library. In an earlier post by James Turner pointed this out and two possible ways of getting around this issue. One is by adding a line in the httpd configure file to include the pthread library during the build and the other is by using the LD_PRELOAD variable. I recently tried to do the first item but during the build process, I received building errors. I'm thinking that the error occurred due to my setup but I haven't had a chance to setup another test system since then. Option two works to a point. It's alot of text to type and if the system reboots, you'll see errors during the boot up process. You can make this easier by editing the rc and apachectl files to include the LD_PRELOAD before the command. Even this makes the upgrade process more complicated because you have to account for the version number of the pthread library. These modifications aren't the most ideal but they are not impossible to do.

All this aside, this hasn't been imported into the OpenBSD port system. Although I am not sure of the official reason behind this, I'm thinking that these problems do not help. Until it is and this little quark is fixed, I would suggest sticking with the fcgi route for Django on OpenBSD. If you are daring enough, you can try yourself, at your own risk of course.