Launching a Flask Application on Your VPS

Overview

Flask is a lightweight WSGI web application framework inPython, known for its simplicity and ease of use. It's an excellent choice forsmall to medium web applications, microservices, and APIs. This guide will showyou how to set up a Flask application on your Virtual Private Server (VPS) withHSJ.HOST, enabling you to develop and deploy web applications swiftly.

Prerequisites

• A VPS account with HSJ.HOST.
• SSH access to your server.
• Python 3 and pip installed on your VPS.
• Basic knowledge of the Linux command line and Python.

Procedure

1. Access Your VPS via SSH

• Initiate an SSH connection to your server: ssh user@your_vps_ip, substituting user with your actual username and your_vps_ip with the IP address of your VPS.
     
     

2. Update Your Server's Package List

• Run sudo apt update to refresh your package listings and sudo apt upgrade to upgrade any existing packages.
     
     

3. Set Up a Python Virtual Environment

• If not already installed, install the python3-venv package:
     
     

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sudo apt install python3-venv

• Create a new directory for your Flask project and navigate into it:
     
     

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mkdir my_flask_app && cd my_flask_app

• Within this directory, create a virtual environment:
     
     

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python3 -m venv venv

• Activate the virtual environment:
     
     

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source venv/bin/activate

4. Install Flask

• With the virtual environment activated, install Flask using pip:
     
     

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pip install Flask

5. Create a Simple Flask Application

• Inside your project directory, create a file named app.py:
     
     

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touch app.py

• Edit app.py with a text editor and add the following basic Flask application code:
     
     

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from flask import Flask app = Flask(__name__)@app.route('/') def hello_world(): return 'Hello, World!' if __name__ =='__main__': app.run(host='0.0.0.0', port=5000)

• This code creates a basic web server that responds with "Hello, World!" when accessed.
     
     

6. Run Your Flask Application

• Start your Flask application with:
     
     

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python app.py

• This command runs your Flask application on port 5000. You can access it by navigating to http://your_vps_ip:5000 in a web browser.
     
     

Conclusion

Congratulations! You've successfully launched a Flaskapplication on your VPS with HSJ.HOST. Flask's simplicity and flexibility makeit an excellent choice for starting web development projects quickly. Fromhere, you can continue to build out your application, add more routes, andexplore Flask's extensive documentation to add more complex functionalities.

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