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How to set up a basic Python Flask application that queries MySQL

In this tutorial, I'll show you how to set up a toy Python/Flask web application that will query your CS340 MariaDB database to get the list of tables in the database, and to display the list in an HTML table. It will also display the OSU logo as an inline image, as an example of how we can serve static files (i.e., static content) through your Flask applicaiton.

In all of the steps below, ramseyst should be understood to represent your ONID username.

If you are not on-campus, you'll want to start by establishing a VPN connection to the OSU campus network (you don't need that to SSH into the "flip" servers as you know, but you will need it to be able to connect to your Flask application via HTTP). See the OSU VPN Knowledge Base.

Now, for this exercise, you'll want to log into the flip servers, as explained in the tutorial assignment1.md,

ssh ramseyst@access.engr.oregonstate.edu

Make note of which flip server you have logged into (it should be shown in your shell prompt, but you can also see it by entering the command hostname). Next, you'll want to create a python3 virtual environment (virtualenv) which is essentially your own private copy of python3, where you can install whatever python packages your application will need.

python3 -m venv venv

Next, you'll want to activate your virtualenv, like this:

source venv/bin/activate.csh

Your prompt should now have the string [venv] prepended to it. Next, you will want to create a subdirectory for your flask project, like this:

mkdir -p cs340-flask

Check which pip you are using

which pip

it should be

/nfs/stak/users/ramseyst/venv/bin/pip

Now install (from PyPI) the packages that you will need, which are mysqlclient and Flask:

pip install mysqlclient Flask

Go into your cs34-flask directory:

cd cs340-flask

You'll need a subdirectory for static content; so make one (inside your cs340-flask directory):

mkdir -p static

And copy a little image file into the static folder, to test it out:

curl -L -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ramseylab/cs340/main/logo.png > static/logo.png

Now, use your favorite text editor to create a file app.py,

import MySQLdb, flask, configparser, os

def read_config_section(config_file_name: str,
                        section: str) -> dict:
    config = configparser.ConfigParser()
    config.read(config_file_name)
    return dict(config[section if section is not None else 'client'])


config_info = read_config_section(os.path.join(os.path.expanduser("~"), ".my.cnf"),
                                   'client')

config_info_list = [config_info[k] for k in ['host', 'user', 'password', 'database']]

def db_conn():
   return MySQLdb.connect(*config_info_list)


webapp = flask.Flask(__name__, static_url_path='/static')

@webapp.route('/')
def get_tables():
    res_html = "<html>\n<body>\n<table border=\"1\">\n"
    cursor = db_conn().cursor()
    cursor.execute('show tables;', ())
    for [table_name] in cursor.fetchall():
        res_html += f"<tr><td>{table_name}</td></tr>\n"
    res_html += "</table>\n"
    res_html += "<img src=\"/static/logo.png\" />\n</body>\n</html>\n"
    return res_html
##get_tables = webapp.route('/')(get_tables)

The last comment shows (in plain python syntax) what the somewhat mysterious-looking "decorator" directive @webapp.route('/') does. Before we go any further, let's set up Flask to run in "development" mode (the default is "production" mode), which will show an interactive traceback if an error occurs, rather than "internal server error".

setenv FLASK_ENV development

Note, this only sets FLASK_ENV for your current terminal session, it isn't permanent; you can configure it permanently using your ~/.cshrc file or alternatively, by using a virtualenv postactivate hook. Now, to make sure that you are running in the virtualenv, try

which python

and it should print a result like this:

/nfs/stak/users/ramseyst/venv/bin/python

Now, still in your virtualenv, start up the Flask application, like this:

python -m flask run -h 0.0.0.0 -p NNNN

where in place of NNNN, you would specify a TCP port number, an integer between 1,024 and 65,535 that is not already in use by another application. How can you tell which TCP ports are in use by another application?

netstat -tulpn | grep LISTEN | cut -f4 -d\: | cut -f1 -d\  | sort -n | uniq

When you run the above python command specifying a port number (e.g., 65,505), you would see something like this:

[venv] flip3 ~/cs340-flask 232% python -m flask run -h 0.0.0.0 -p 65505
 * Environment: production
   WARNING: This is a development server. Do not use it in a production deployment.
   Use a production WSGI server instead.
 * Debug mode: off
 * Running on all addresses.
   WARNING: This is a development server. Do not use it in a production deployment.
 * Running on http://128.193.36.41:65505/ (Press CTRL+C to quit)

Your Flask application is serving as a webserver, at least until you terminate it by giving it a SIGINT or logging out of your remote terminal session). There is a way to make your Flask application run in the background so that you don't have to leave a remote terminal session running long-term (leaving a remote terminal session running for a long time is not really practical because it can be terminated unexpectedly due to a transient network interruptation, and is also somewhat of a security anti-pattern). To run your Flask application in the background, you can use Green Unicorn (gunicorn) as outlined in the CS340 starter Flask app on GitHub. For the purpose of this simple tutorial, just leave your Flask application running in your remote terminal session. Now, for the next step, you will need to either be on-campus or your computer will need to be logged into the VPN. Assuming that's the case, you can point your web browser to:

http://flip3.engr.oregonstate.edu

and you should see the following HTML output (rendered of course):

<html>
<body>
<table border="1">
<tr><td>bsg_cert</td></tr>
<tr><td>bsg_cert_people</td></tr>
<tr><td>bsg_people</td></tr>
<tr><td>bsg_planets</td></tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>

Once you are done with your testing, you can terminate your Flask application by going to the terminal session in which you started the Flask application and typing <ctrl>-c which will issue a SIGINT signal to the application.

When you are ready to run your server for real, you can install gunicorn like this:

pip install gunicorn

Then (making sure that your current working directory is ~/cs340-flask), run

~/venv/bin/gunicorn -w 1 -b 0.0.0.0:NNN -D app:webapp

and it will run in the background. To shut it down, use ps axwf | less and look for your specific TCP port number; it will look something like this:

18608 ?        S      0:00 /nfs/stak/users/ramseyst/venv/bin/python3 /nfs/stak/users/ramseyst/venv/bin/gunicorn -w 1 -b 0.0.0.0:6550
18611 ?        S      0:00  \_ /nfs/stak/users/ramseyst/venv/bin/python3 /nfs/stak/users/ramseyst/venv/bin/gunicorn -w 1 -b 0.0.0.0:
18612 ?        S      0:00  \_ /nfs/stak/users/ramseyst/venv/bin/python3 /nfs/stak/users/ramseyst/venv/bin/gunicorn -w 1 -b 0.0.0.0:
18614 ?        S      0:00  \_ /nfs/stak/users/ramseyst/venv/bin/python3 /nfs/stak/users/ramseyst/venv/bin/gunicorn -w 1 -b 0.0.0.0:
18615 ?        S      0:00  \_ /nfs/stak/users/ramseyst/venv/bin/python3 /nfs/stak/users/ramseyst/venv/bin/gunicorn -w 1 -b 0.0.0.0:

Kill the parent process (the top-level one shown, which has PID 18605 in this case) using kill -9.