Flask-App-Hosted-On-VPS

Files needed to host a flask application on a linux VPS.

Commands

Run the following commands on the VPS.

Install Python and Pip

sudo apt-get install python3
sudo apt-get install python3-pip
pip3 install flask

Install and Configure NGINX

Install nginx and create a new configuration file.

sudo apt install nginx 
sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/<directory-name-of-flask-app>

The contents of the confiugration file should be as follows:

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name <public-server-ip>;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8000;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
    }
}

Unlink the default config file and reload nginx to use the newly created config file.

sudo unlink /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default
sudo nginx -s reload

Installing and Using Gunicorn

sudo apt-get install gunicorn

Run the flask web app with gunicorn. The name of your flask instance must be app.

gunicorn -w 3 flask_app:app

Now navigate to your servers public ip from a web browser! :)

Credits

This information was summarized from Linode's Guide