
Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons
If you have a Mac OS X Leopard on an Intel platform, and you are interested in installing mod_python using your default apache setup and the python that comes with the Framework, even more if you want to give PyCAPTCHA a try together with mod_python, then check out this post! I’m covering also the installation of required libraries for PyCAPTCHA under Leopard (FreeType2, libjpeg, PIL)
mod_python
Compile mod_python
If you have Apple’s Xcode installed, compiling mod_python for Leopard to use with the system provided versions of httpd, python, etc. should be as simple as running these commands:
mkdir -p ~/mod_python
cd ~/mod_python
svn co http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/quetzalcoatl/mod_python/trunk mod_python-trunk
cd mod_python-trunk
./configure --with-apxs=/usr/sbin/apxs
make
sudo make install
cd test/
python test.py
Configure Apache to load mod_python
Open /private/etc/apache2/httpd.conf
with your favorite editor and add the following line:
LoadModule python_module libexec/apache2/mod_python.so
This is just an example, I recommend reading the mod_python manual for more information.
Open /private/etc/apache2/users/username.conf with your favorite editor and add:
Alias / "/Users/username/htdocs/"
<Directory "/Users/username/htdocs/">
SetHandler python-program
PythonHandler mod_python.publisher
# Disable following line when in production
PythonDebug On
<Files ~ "\.(gif|jpg|png|ico|js|css)$">
SetHandler default-handler
</Files>
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Directory>
Restart Apache with the command below:
/usr/sbin/apachectl restart
PyCAPTCHA
In order to build and install PyCAPTCHA you’ll need to compile, or make sure that you have these required libraries:
- FreeType2
- libjpeg
- PIL (Python Imaging Library)
Let’s see how to set up these libraries under a Leopard / Intel environment.
FreeType2
This library is required for PyCAPTCHA, as far as I know it is already installed with the SDK, to check the directory where the library is installed use the command:
locate libfreetype.dylib
A version of this library should appear under /Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.5.sdk/usr/X11/
libjpeg
Download jpeg source and uncompress it in any directory, e.g. ~/jpeg-6b then:
cd ~/jpeg-6b
chmod -R 777 *
./configure
Edit Makefile and change the following line from:
CFLAGS= -O2 -I$(srcdir)
to:
CFLAGS= -arch ppc -arch i386 -arch ppc64 -arch x86_64 -O2 -I$(srcdir)
Finally, build and install:
make
sudo make install-lib
PIL
Download PIL source and uncompress it in any directory, e.g. ~/imaging-1.1.6
then:
cd ~/imaging-1.1.6
Edit setup.py and change the following lines from:
FREETYPE_ROOT = None
to (note that I’m using the FreeType2 directory discovered previously with the locate command):
FREETYPE_ROOT = libinclude("/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.5.sdk/usr/X11/")
and then following line from:
JPEG_ROOT = None
to:
JPEG_ROOT = libinclude("/usr/local")
Locate these lines:
from distutils import sysconfig
from distutils.core import Extension, setup
from distutils.command.build_ext import build_ext
And add the following lines (correctly indented from column 0):
OrigExtension = Extension
def Extension(*args, **kwargs):
extra_args = ['-arch', 'ppc', '-arch', 'ppc64', '-arch', 'i386', '-arch', 'x86_64']
kwargs['extra_compile_args'] = extra_args + kwargs.get('extra_compile_args', [])
kwargs['extra_link_args'] = extra_args + kwargs.get('extra_link_args', [])
return OrigExtension(*args, **kwargs)
Now proceed to compile and install the library:
sudo python setup.py install
Install PyCAPTCHA
Now you are ready to build and install PyCAPTCHA. Checkout the source code from this link and run the following command:
sudo python setup.py install
That’s it!