Anyone here with good experience on installing OSQA at Bluehost?

Here's roughly what I did: this can go into the wiki: This is a merge of https://www.bluehost.com/cgi/help/000531 and http://wiki.osqa.net/display/docs/Installing+OSQA+on+BlueHost+Using+fast-cgi

Go to CPanel, and create a subdirectory of your public_html - I'll call it osqa here, you call it what you like. So we've now got ~/public\\_html/osqa. Now create a subdomain in CPanel that is served from public\\_html/osqa . I'll use example.com as the domain, and osqa.example.com as the subdomain. Just don't try to use a subdirectory. Bite the bullet, make a subdomain.

Find out the right version number of Django to use. I think 1.2.4 is ok. Check the latest in the 1.2 or x.x stream, check other questions about django versions here.

Then login by SSH Replace the link in the following line, with the download link of the tarball of the django version you want - let's call it 1.2.X for now:

mkdir -p ~/.local/lib/python/
wget http://www.djangoproject.com/download/1.2.X/tarball/
tar xzvf Django-1.2X.tar.gz
cd Django-1.2.X
python2.6 setup.py install --home $HOME/.local

Note the "." in front of local each time - we are installing to ~/.local , not to ~/local

And you see that python2.6? That's really important. Anywhere you're directed to run a python command from the command line during installation, use python2.6, rather than just python.

Add the following to the end of your ~/.bashrc file:

export PATH=$HOME/.local/bin:$HOME/.local/usr/bin:$PATH
export PYTHONPATH=$HOME/.local/lib/python2.6:$PYTHONPATH

Log out of SSH, and log back in, to make this change have effect.

This next bit is taken almost verbatim from https://www.bluehost.com/cgi/help/000531 , with a couple of important changes.

You can test your installation of Django to see if it worked by starting the Python interpretor by typing python2.6 at the command prompt and hitting enter. You'll get the Python interactive interpretor, where you can type import django and hit enter. If it gives an error, then there is a problem with your installation. If no error is given, then you've successfully installed Django to your Python path. Go ahead and exit the Python shell by typing ctrl+d.

If you were unable to import Django, try re-logging in to your shell, and try again. If it still doesn't work, double check to make sure that your Python path is correct, and that Django really resides in a directory on the Python Path. To see what this list of directories is, enter python2.6, and type "import sys; sys.path", and press enter. This should give you a list of directories. This should include any directories you listed in your .bashrc file for PYTHONPATH. Ctrl-D to exit python again.

Check for any typos in your .bashrc file. As long as the django directory is in one of those directories listed, then you should be able to do the import. If it isn't in any of those directories, try re-installing Django.

From the SSH command prompt (not the Python one, the SSH shell one), enter django-admin.py. You should get a usage message with a list of management commands that can be run. If you get "command not found", then there was a problem with the installation of Django.

To diagnose a "command not found", double check that there are no typos in your .bashrc file for the PATH variable that you added. Re-log in to ensure that this .bashrc change is taking place. Type echo $PATH at the command prompt to get a list of directories on your path, and echo $PYTHONPATH to check the Python path (but you guessed that from the name, right?). The django-admin.py file should be in your ~/.local/bin directory. If it isn't in that directory, try re-installing Django.

OK, so now you've got a working Django - you need some extra python libraries. Go get the latest setuptools from one of the links at http://pypi.python.org/pypi/setuptools#downloads Put it on your server, in a temporary directory. Then, in SSH, go to that directory, and run the following commands in turn: (replace the setuptools-XXX.egg bit in the first command, with the exact name of the setuptools file that you downloaded)

./setuptools-0.6c11-py2.6.egg --prefix=~/.local
~/.local/bin/easy_install --prefix=~/.local flup
~/.local/bin/easy_install --prefix=~/.local mysql-python
~/.local/bin/easy_install --prefix=~/.local Django
~/.local/bin/easy_install --prefix=~/.local html5lib
~/.local/bin/easy_install --prefix=~/.local markdown
~/.local/bin/easy_install --prefix=~/.local south
~/.local/bin/easy_install --prefix=~/.local python-openid

Now we install OSQA:

cd ~/.local/lib/python2.6/site-packages
svn co http://svn.osqa.net/svnroot/osqa/trunk
mv trunk osqa

copy osqa/settings\\_local.py.dist to osqa/settings\\_local.py and edit according to the INSTALL directions.

Finally, from the OSQA directory ( ~/.local/lib/python2.6/site-packages/osqa ) you must run:

python2.6 manage.py syncdb --all
python2.6 manage.py migrate --all
python2.6 manage.py migrate forum 0001 --fake
python2.6 manage.py runserver 95

And then press Ctrl-C to stop the local python server.

In your ~/public_html/osqa directory, create a file .htaccess with the following content:

AddHandler fcgid-script .fcgi
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^(media.*)$ /$1 [QSA,L,PT]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ osqa.fcgi/$1 [QSA,L]

And create a file osqa.fcgi with the following content: note that there are three occurrences of USERNAME below - change each of them to your bluehost username

#!/usr/bin/python2.6
import sys, os
sys.path.insert(0, "/home/USERNAME/.local/lib/python2.6/site-packages")
sys.path.append("/home/USERNAME/.local/lib/python2.6/site-packages/osqa")
os.chdir("/home/USERNAME/.local/lib/python2.6/site-packages/osqa")
os.environ['DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE'] = 'osqa.settings'
from django.core.servers.fastcgi import runfastcgi
runfastcgi(method="threaded", daemonize="false")

Change its attributes to make osqa.fcgi executable:

chmod +x osqa.fcgi

Any time you change any of the *.py files, such as settings_local.py , then from SSH do

touch ~/public_html/osqa/osqa.fcgi

That touch tells the server realises that files have been updated. If you don't do this touch, your changes won't take effect.

Now, all being well, you should have a working OSQA installation!