I am setting up a very simple HTTP server for the first time, am considering my options, and would appreciate any feedback on the best way to proceed. My goal is pretty simple: I'm not serving any files, I only need to respond to a very specific HTTP POST request that will contain geolocation data, run some Python code, and return the results as JSON. I do need to be able to respond to multiple simultaneous requests. I would like to use HTTPS.
In looking on stackoverflow it seems I can potentially go with BaseHTTPServer and ThreadingMixIn, or Apache and mod_wsgi. I already have Apache installed, but have never configured it. Are there compelling reasons to go the more complicated Apache route (more complicated to me, because I will need to do research on configuring Apache and getting mod_wsgi going but already have a test instance of BaseHTTPServer up and running), or is it equally safe, secure (very important), and performance-oriented to use BaseHTTPServer for something so simple?
BaseHTTPServer is not a production grade server.
If you don't understand how to set up Apache, but want to get something with mod_wsgi running quickly and easily, then you probably want to look at mod_wsgi express.
This gives you a way of installing mod_wsgi using Python 'pip' and also provides you a way of starting up Apache/mod_wsgi with a auto generated Apache and mod_wsgiconfiguration such that you don't even need to know how to configure Apache.
The next version of mod_wsgi express to be released (version 4.3.0, likely released this week), can even set up a HTTPS site for you, with you just needing to have obtained a valid certificate or generated a self signed certificate.
I would suggest if interested you use the mod_wsgi mailing list to ask for more details about using mod_wsgi express for running a HTTPS site.
You can start playing around though with it for a normal HTTP site by following instructions at: