# WSGIScriptAlias

Description: | Maps a URL to a filesystem location and designates the target as a WSGI script.
Syntax: | `WSGIScriptAlias` URL-path file-path|directory-path `[` options `]`
Context: | server config, virtual host

The WSGIScriptAlias directive behaves in the same manner as the Alias directive, except that it additionally marks the target directory as containing WSGI scripts, or marks the specific file-path as a script, that should be processed by mod_wsgi’s `wsgi-script` handler.

Where the target is a directory-path, URLs with a case-sensitive (%-decoded) path beginning with URL-path will be mapped to scripts contained in the indicated directory.

For example:

    WSGIScriptAlias /wsgi-scripts/ /web/wsgi-scripts/

A request for `http://www.example.com/wsgi-scripts/name` in this case would cause the server to run the WSGI application defined in `/web/wsgi-scripts/name`. This configuration is essentially equivalent to:

    Alias /wsgi-scripts/ /web/wsgi-scripts/
    <Location /wsgi-scripts>
    SetHandler wsgi-script
    Options +ExecCGI
    </Location>

Where the target is a file-path, URLs with a case-sensitive (%-decoded) path beginning with URL-path will be mapped to the script defined by the file-path.

For example:

    WSGIScriptAlias /name /web/wsgi-scripts/name

A request for `http://www.example.com/name` in this case would cause the server to run the WSGI application defined in `/web/wsgi-scripts/name`.

If possible you should avoid placing WSGI scripts under the DocumentRoot in order to avoid accidentally revealing their source code if the configuration is ever changed. The WSGIScriptAlias makes this easy by mapping a URL and designating the location of any WSGI scripts at the same time. If you do choose to place your WSGI scripts in a directory already accessible to clients, do not use WSGIScriptAlias. Instead, use Directory, SetHandler and Options as in:

    <Directory /usr/local/apache/htdocs/wsgi-scripts>
    SetHandler wsgi-script
    Options ExecCGI
    </Directory>

This is necessary since multiple URL-paths can map to the same filesystem location, potentially bypassing the WSGIScriptAlias and revealing the source code of the WSGI scripts if they are not restricted by a Directory section.

Options which can be supplied to the `WSGIScriptAlias` directive are:

process-group=name

  Defines which process group the WSGI application will be executed in. All WSGI applications within the same process group will execute within the context of the same group of daemon processes.

  If the name is set to be `%{GLOBAL}` the process group name will be set to the empty string. Any WSGI applications in the global process group will always be executed within the context of the standard Apache child processes. Such WSGI applications will incur the least runtime overhead, however, they will share the same process space with other Apache modules such as PHP, as well as the process being used to serve up static file content. Running WSGI applications within the standard Apache child processes will also mean the application will run as the user that Apache would normally run as.

application-group=name

  Defines which application group a WSGI application or set of WSGI applications belongs to. All WSGI applications within the same application group will execute within the context of the same Python sub interpreter of the process handling the request.

  If the name is set to be `%{GLOBAL}` the application group will be set to the empty string. Any WSGI applications in the global application group will always be executed within the context of the first interpreter created by Python when it is initialised, of the process handling the request. Forcing a WSGI application to run within the first interpreter can be necessary when a third party C extension module for Python has used the simplified threading API for manipulation of the Python GIL and thus will not run correctly within any additional sub interpreters created by Python.

If both `process-group` and `application-group` options are set, the WSGI script file will be pre-loaded when the process it is to run in is started, rather than being lazily loaded on the first request.